The House Husband

Had a rather busy day today. It all started with Carmen licking my face at 6am to tell me it was raining…which it wasn’t. I let the poodles out and went back to sleep for another hour only to be woken by the recycling truck. I gave up and just waited for the alarm to go off at 7. I drifted in and out of consciousness until it did. I then rang a bleary sounding Mirinda so she could enjoy the morning as much as I had so far.

After coffee and toast I hitched the girls to their lead and took them on a good, long walk around the park. we met a few other intrepid early morning walkers. Fortunately I had built in a FSI buffer because Carmen decided to collect some particularly delicious samples to bring home with her. I needed the buffer because the taxi was arriving at 10.

After bathing Carmen and having a shower myself, the taxi arrived and took us to the kennel for the poodles’ holiday treat and then drove me back. I was going to repeat my last trip by taking the taxi to Frensham pond and then catch the bus back home but last night I received a phone call from someone on the Talking Newspaper to ask if he could swap times with me for today. Originally I was down for the 2pm slot which would give me heaps of time but he wanted to take that and give me the 12pm one instead. I actually preferred this, though it does mean a rather late lunch, but it meant I had to get the taxi both ways in order to get home in time to leave again.

I made it in plenty of time and set off along the path towards Farnham reciting my limited French in my head. I do this sometimes because I’m weird. Mind you, it doesn’t take very long. By the time I reached the end of the path, I had gone over my entire vocabulary about 150 times.

Standing at the end of the path were two chaps and a stroller. Standing beside the stroller was a child with blonde hair and blue eyes (about 2, I think) who smiled up at me and said “Bonjour.” Normally this would have caught me somewhat on the hop but I just naturally replied “Bonjour” with a smile and kept walking. It wasn’t until I reached the end of the lane and a woman said “Hello” that I realised I wasn’t actually in France. Very odd.

Anyway, the Talking Newspaper went well though I did have a bit of trouble saying “Liphook United under 10s…”. I had to say it four times! I kept missing out the ‘United’. That’s the problem with cold reading. You never know what particular bits are going to trip you up until they manage to do it successfully.

Back at home I finished testing yet another database, missing the dogs. I was engrossed in the screen when I heard a noise in the house. I turned the music off and listened. A tiny tinkle could be heard. It sounded like Carmen – the way her name tag hits her collar. I was stunned. Perhaps she’d managed to walk back from the kennel on her own after re-enacting the Great Escape! I stood up and quietly walked into the bedroom. Sitting looking at me was the crazy screechy dog from next door, smiling and cheerful.

I took it back home, meeting the neighbours as they were coming over to look for it. I then spent half an hour blocking up the hole under the fence where it had managed to crawl through.

Eventually I had dinner. because of the lunch time Talking Newspaper, it means my lunch is at 4pm so dinner is at 9pm. What a crazy life!

I had a Talking Newspaper date today (12-4). We were reading the Haslemere papers and what a dire lot of news stories we had! Peter, the presenter, claimed it was the dullest newspaper he had EVER read. He wasn’t wrong. I found it difficult to get any laughs at all. But, of course, I did manage a few.

After the recording, Peter said to all and sundry that he likes recording with me because I always make him laugh. One of the pieces that Maureen read was about people needing to laugh at least 81 times a day (I have no idea where the figure comes from) so I told Peter that I was helping him towards his 81 for today. Which made him laugh. To which I said “And there’s another!” At which he laughed again. I thought it best to stop then as I didn’t want to use them all up.

It reminded me of the time that Simon at Telewest said that he liked to live every moment as if it was his last. The conversation went something like this:

SIMON: I like to live every moment as if it was my last!
GARY: What about this one?
SIMON: What?
GARY: That moment. Just gone.
SIMON: [LAUGHING]
GARY: And this one? Quick, get living, dude!
SIMON: [LAUGHING MORE]
GARY: [AFTER A NICE LONG PAUSE] This is a good one. Do it now!

See how silly I am? But, it does the job. I think life is for laughing. Evolution gave us an amazing ability – laughter – and we need to exercise it as much as we can.

Mirinda accuses me of not taking things seriously enough (which is true) particularly when I echo David Brent by saying “I am an entertainer first and a [whatever job I'm doing] second!” but I figure it’s my greatest skill.

To that end, I wish to change what is to be written on my grave. It was going to be ‘Why act when you can pause?’ which harks back to my days in theatre and my ability to inject very long pauses into pieces I directed (my record was around 10 minutes at the beginning of Salome, a feat I am somewhat proud of). I have decided, however, to change it to ‘Here lies Gary Cook, an entertainer first and a corpse second.’ I think that just about sums me up.

Woke up bright and early this morning then waited for Nicktor to rise from the dead. It’s half term over here so he’s taken the week off to spend with his family. Yesterday he watched his boys play 20-20 cricket (they won one game and lost the other) and had a great day. Anyway, it means he’s not at work so he didn’t have to leave at his usual early hour. I had the Talking Newspaper this morning so he dropped me off on his way through.

Today I was back to reading the Farnham Herald and it all went pretty smoothly except for poor Charlotte who lost her voice near the end. It was very odd because it just vanished. But we managed to get around it and just left her out the reading circle for the last few items.

I had a few funny stories today as well as a big reference to the pig racing at the Surrey Show. My favourite was the 80 year old Farnham woman whose grandson emailed her entry off to appear in The Times fashion supplement last Wednesday. She had quite a shock when they said yes and whisked her off to Kensington for a photo shoot. She shops at Elphicks and made sure she mentioned how we have so many wonderful independent shops in Farnham. Oh, I just love this place.

The weather has been fantastic the last few days and the park has been very busy as a consequence. It’s also because of half term. Lots of men without t-shirts and women in barely anything, lying down on the grass giving Day-z something to sniff and lick.

I’m forever on my guard anyway but today, especially as she had an FSI. I could just see it. Someone says “Ooo, what a cute poodle,” and gives her a big hug, pulls a face and jumps up splattering when they realise they’re now covered in fox poo! But we managed to get through the park without any incidents other than the FSI.

Four times a year, timed with the seasons, our council (Waverley) publishes and delivers a magazine to all residents. It’s called Making Waves and lets us all know what is going on and who to contact if we have any problems. Sometimes I read it but usually it goes into the recycling straight after delivery. This changed today.

I had a desperate phone call last week from Mary from the Talking Newspaper. She asked if I could come in on a Wednesday. Of course, I’m normally having lunch with Mirinda on a Wednesday but this week, because of a meeting, I was available so I said yes. All I knew was I’d be reading the same thing three times.

So I turned up having no idea what I’d be reading. Mary, Mo and the engineer were already there and I was handed four copies of Making Waves. One for each region of Waverley. Mary had numbered the articles and we were told the order of reading.

The centre section of the four magazines is the same so this we would read only once but the front and back pages are different for each region so these would be read for each magazine. The whole thing is then put together by the engineer and posted on the council website for everyone and anyone to listen to. It will be posted here if anyone really wants to listen. It will be the Summer 2010 edition.

The reason Talking Newspaper do it is because they receive a yearly payment for it which helps to fund the charity work and, as Mary said, is preferable to standing in the street with a rattling donation bucket.

And so we read it. It was quite dull. We were not allowed to make any jokes, just be upbeat and read exactly what it said. What a funny thing this volunteering is sometimes.

We read for three hours and then I was off to meet Nicktor for our movie night.

Today I had an unexpected Talking Newspaper stint. Poor George fell down his stairs and was so bruised he couldn’t get out of his chair. He rang me and asked if I could swap with him. Seeing as I was free (apart from writing my proposal) I agreed and trotted off this morning for the early shift.

There are three shifts on a Thursday. 10-2 is for the Farnham Herald, 12-4 is the Haslemere Herald and 2-6 for Alton. We generally edit for about an hour and a half then start recording. Generally it finishes half an hour early. This is the buffer that is built in for any emergency that may crop up.

This morning I was up for the 10-2. I generally manage to turn up 15 minutes before the off, which gives me a chance to get a good start on the edit. This morning was no different.

I walked up to the door and turned the handle. It was locked. This isn’t that unusual. When anyone is there alone they tend to lock the front door given the area. I rang the bell. I waited. I rang the bell again.

I peered through the windows of the edit room. Everything was black. This was odd. I took out my Dawkins and read.

The next reader then turned up. She was as confused as I was. She rang the bell as well. We were waiting for the presenter, who is responsible for picking up the newspapers and unlocking the studio.

At 10, Scottish Liz turned up, the third reader. She resisted the urge to ring the bell and we chatted about what could have happened. We rang the presenter but he wasn’t home so we figured he was stuck in traffic or something.

By 10:20, it was getting ridiculous so we rang Tony, the boss, and explained the situation. He said he’d pick up the papers and be with us asap.

He arrived at 10:30 and said he’d called the presenter’s mobile and was told he was on his way to London and he’d forgotten!

We poured into the edit room and started cutting and pasting. It was a rush job. The presenter for the next session turned up and we explained the situation. When we told him where and who the presenter was, he laughed, looked at Tony and said “Again?”

It all turned out ok. We read and recorded. I made a few fluffs (which will be cut out by the sound engineer, thank goodness) but overall it went quite well. I made them laugh a few times (always good) and fed Scottish Liz a few good lines as well. All in all, a fun morning, really. I love the Talking Newspaper!

I had a pretty busy day today. And a long one due to Carmen deciding I needed to wake up at 5:45! Rotten dog. And then, to douse insult over injury, she had an FSI during our walk in the park. I never plan a bath buffer into my days so I end up rushing her through the shampooing and rinsing and towelling off. Still, it’s her own fault. Actually I think she prefers it when it doesn’t last too long. Anyway, she then was all fresh and fluffy.

I put some time into my fourth and final essay, downloading lots of lovely articles about eReaders and eBooks. Annoyingly, when searching for them, I had to run three separate searches because they are called, variously, eBooks, e-books and e books! Oddly, this formed part of a point I made in the conclusion I drew for my previous essay with regard to automatic indexing. So, quite handy, really.

After a few loads of washing between study, I was off to record the Talking Newspaper for the month. Our presenter today was Prudence. She straightaway told us we had to be nice to her because it was her saint’s feast day. When I asked what she was known for, Prudence shrugged then said

“There’s something about wind.” Which made everyone look up, “If it’s windy, the sheets will dance.”

Quite surreal. Anyway, having consulted my Oxford Dictionary of Saints, there doesn’t appear to BE a Saint Prudence! I decided to spread my search a little further. I asked the Catholic Online website, which purporets to have the largest list of saints EVER. The closest thing to a St Prudence is two saints called Prudentius, both of whom were bishops and, clearly, men. One has no feast day and the other is on April 6. I think someone has sold Prudence a turnip painted as a carrot. Still, we were nice to her anyway so it doesn’t really matter.

We were also regaled with stories from Ann, who was one of my fellow readers. She was having a moan about the Scots and, by way of illustration, told the story of her trip up the east coast of Australia. They’d travelled from Sydney to Cairns and started having a chat with an old Queenslander. When they said how far they’d travelled he was amazed. He’d not been any further than Brisbane his whole life and here they were travelling all that way. Ann’s husband said he had lived in England all his life and never travelled to Scotland. The old bloke then said:

“Why the bloody hell would you go to Scotland?”

We all laughed and then I said, in my broadest Australian accent:

“Why the bloody hell would you go to Cairns?”

They then set about laughing at my new hat, declaring it should have corks around the brim. They also asked if I was trying to bring on the summer weather – it was quite overcast all morning. I laughed and smiled politely.

After recording this weeks issue of the Haslemere Herald, Liphook Herald and the Messenger, I was off to the shops to buy my dinner and then to the TA Queen’s Barracks where my polling station is. For today was election day. I did my bit for democracy by placing a cross in the appropriate box. Actually I only really made up my mind this morning. I’m one of those horrid swing voters the parties hate so much. I glory in being so choosy.

But really, I don’t understand party loyalty and always voting for the same group of politicians. I reckon if you’re going to do that you should just have a permanent vote which gets counted and you don’t bother going up there on the day. Voting should be for people who want representation for the community not for the ones who only adhere to the tenets of a club.

Anyway, I did that then wandered up to the hospital to pick up some drugs for Mirinda, finally arriving home at about 4:30pm.

And, of course, due to my hat wearing, the weather has turned lovely. I spent a good half an hour burning rubbish with Carmen for company. When it’s warm, she likes lying flat with her belly on the grass. She looks so comfy, I took her photo.

Carmen chills

I have to admit that on the way home I didn’t see any dancing sheets.

I had a lovely time with Nicktor last night, as usual. He introduced me to the pleasures of grain whisky, something I’ve never tried. Like good vodka, it needs to be served from the freezer. As soon as he arrived it went in. There were two decent measures worth of whisky in the bottle – he’d been saving it for us.

After the usual very few hours sleep (for some insane reason we watched three movies instead of two) Nicktor headed off to work and I readied myself for my monthly date at the Talking Newspaper. It was a good team. John, the vicar with the great voice, his wife June, Sue the engineer and a presenter whose name I’ve forgotten. We finished in record time! An hour early.

Nothing very interesting in the stories though – there’s only so much feeling you can give to a council report on waste collection problems. I had one rather odd story about a knitting fair held last month but otherwise, it was all a bit dull.

When I arrived home, the puppies went crazy so I hitched them straight up and we set off for the park. We had a short detour to the vet to pick up a repeat prescription for Day-z. The pills for her incontinence are FANTASTIC. There is no way we want to run out.

For todays walk we decided to go up the Oak Wood as we’ve not been up there for ages. I call it the Oak Wood – I don’t think it actually has a name – because it has three big old oaks and many smaller ones which the park management is letting grow. I was surprised how muddy it still was given we haven’t had rain since February and everywhere else is pretty much dried up.

We saw a performing German Shepherd. In a field ahead of us, a man was throwing a football sized beach ball into the air and his dog was heading it back to him. This went on for ages. The man throwing the ball, the dog rising to its hind legs and heading it back. It was pretty amazing! Eventually, the guy kicked the ball and the dog went running after it in a normal doggy fashion.

And, effectively, that was my day. I feel a tad washed out but the cold has nearly gone.

Oh, almost forgot. I put some old photos up on the website. You can see them here.

Today was a Talking Newspaper day. It has also rained all day. There’s really no link between the two. It just meant I ended up damp.

The paper had an odd number of stories with mentions of pigs today. Naturally I played this up, making sure I found as many laughs as possible. I had one story about a charity that is going to raffle a load of giant Easter eggs. The piece had nothing about pigs, just charity, chocolate eggs and fluffy toy dogs. I managed to finish it by saying, “…and sadly, there’s no pigs.” The woman sitting next me, preparing to read next, sputtered all over her microphone.

I wasn’t the only one, either. Rosemary, sitting to my right, started her next story by saying how many pig references there were today. She then read a piece about a poor, early cuckoo which probably wouldn’t see out the spring.

Anyway, the main pig reference was in a story about the upcoming Surrey County Show. Among the various events was pig racing. I ended the piece by saying I was definitely up for that. When I told Mirinda, she put the date in her diary straight away. How could you resist?

I was so excited that I bought some bacon to have over my jacket potato tonight. Delicious.

And, especially for Claire, here’s a photo of the chest of drawers. I stood on the bed to take it and squished my head against the ceiling.

Chest of Drawers

Apologies. I just realised I’d already written about the Talking Newspaper stuff! Though I’ve written in a bit more detail and I can’t write another 700 words tonight! So, sorry.

Today was a Farnham and Alton Talking Newspaper day. For those that don’t know, about once a month I go and read newspapers for the blind, partially sighted and anyone who has difficulty holding a newspaper. And, no, I do not sit opposite them and read out loud! It’s recorded and delivered on CD or flash drive or downloaded from their website.

I came across them in the local paper (of course). They were mentioned in an article about local charities. I was intrigued so Googled them and filled out a volunteer form. It wasn’t just philanthropic, I feel like I want to be a part of Farnham (I do love it here) and figured this was a good way to get to know people. Naturally, most of them are a good deal older than I am…but not all! Today I was reading with Lindsay and she is clearly not yet 50.

It also reminds me of my grandmother and her talking book device from the Blind Society. It was HUGE and certainly not portable. But it made such a difference when she was no longer able to read.

The place I go to is the other side of Farnham, in an estate called The Chantrys and an awful estate it is! Typical of the sort of estate thing they have here in the UK. Also typical is how they thought it good to build such an awful place in such a lovely spot! For Bob & Claire; it’s opposite the cemetery, not far from the farm you stayed at many years ago.

FATN has one of the places (maybe it was given to them by the council…I don’t know) and it’s here that all the work goes on. Having once been a house, it’s handy because it has a kitchen and a toilet.

Each group of 4 readers (one of whom is a presenter) arrive at their designated time and are given a selection of pages out of the local paper. We have to cut them out, stick them to recycled paper and then edit them down to around 90 seconds each. This bit is fun. I was always very fond of the red pen when I was a director.

Another fun thing is that most of the other readers (I’ve been doing it since September and I’ve not read with the same people twice) sit and complain about the grammar, spelling and general illiteracy of the newspaper editor. When I do this at home, Mirinda gets annoyed and tells me to shut up. At last! My spiritual home. My favourite so far was a retired English teacher. Boy, did she pick up on errors. And she hated it. The errors, I mean. Like me, she’s particularly fond of the mis- or non- use of apostrophes.

Actually, this slackness really amazes me at uni…but I’ll get in trouble if I go on, so I won’t.

Anyway, once the editing has finished, we move into the studio where the engineer tests our sound levels and microphone placement. The presenter then starts it all off and we read one after the other. I really enjoy it. We are expected to have a bit of a laugh with some of the lighter stories which is where I lap up the glee I produce. According to Mirinda, this isn’t the point. What can I say? I’m an entertainer first, a philanthropist second…

Once we’ve finished we all say goodbye (today the presenter actually said “It’s goodbye from me.” but sadly the next reader didn’t reply “And it’s goodbye from him.“), pack up and go home. A few days later we receive a copy of the CD in the post. I drop it into iTunes and we listen to it on Sunday mornings in bed. Though it makes me cringe a bit.

If anyone would like to read about the FATN, their site is here.

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I should also mention that this morning, at 9.27, I received the very first readings from my weather station. I went outside at 8 this morning and started work immediately. On returning from FATN, I set up the PC to receive the information and now I no longer have to go outside to find out what the weather’s like. This is my first collection of information:

My Very First Weather Data Set

It shows that the wind rather swirls around! It’s supposed to rain tonight. My fingers are crossed!

It snowed a bit last night. The home counties, but more in Kent, were given a thick blanket of it in the early hours.   So I woke up to a lovely wintry scene.  Day-z keeps going out in it but Carmen thinks it’s not worth her while.  Here’s the view from the study window.

snowy garden

The birds are scrabbling around the feeders, trying to clear the snow.  One of them has a mini-snow plough and the others are cheering him on.  Oops!  He just drove off the edge of the bird table.  Good job he can fly.

I was going to attend the second week of presentations at uni today (my group presented last week but we were asked to support the other half of the class) but the news has advised not to go out unless you really, really have to.  I guess that leaves me stuck at home until Mirinda comes home and I go up to the station to meet her.

Yesterday I had a session at the Farnham and Alton Talking Newspaper.  For those that don’t know, it’s a charity that records the local paper onto a disc then sends it out to the visually impaired, free of charge.  There’s a small recording studio and lots of hi-tech equipment, located in a pretty grim housing estate.  Well, grim for Farnham.

There’s always three readers and an engineer and we take turns reading bits from the paper that we’ve edited.  It’s always fun and I never seem to see the same person twice!  Yesterday I was reading with Di, an ex-school teacher of English.  And I thought I was a stickler for language.  Di is worse!  She groans as she edits, despairing over the poor English she will have to read.  The other two readers kept telling her to chill out but she refused to be silenced.  Inside, I was cheering her on.  Whenever I edit, I make a few grammatical changes so I don’t sound like an idiot!

It was a slippery walk home afterwards (at about 6pm) and, a few hours later the snow started.  I don’t care what anyone says, I love the snow!