The House Husband

It’s now official. I am now a bona fide member of the Talking Newspaper committee…though I might have to miss the first committee meeting, which is not a good start.

Today was the 40th annual general meeting of the Talking Newspaper so I left the house to walk across the path to the Upper Hale village hall, where the hordes of volunteers and listeners waited for the proceedings to begin.

Our chairman, John, has decided to step down this year and so, during his long speech, he handed over to Ann, our new chairman. We also have a new president. Sir Richard Thornton was also stepping down.

He’s been a very busy man in local life. He served as the Queen’s High Sheriff of Surrey for a bit as well as the Lord Lieutenant of Surrey (which he retired from in 1997). I’ve never met him but he sounds like a wonderful chap and the chairman had lots of wonderful things to say about his patronage of the group over the years.

Replacing Sir Richard is Dame Elizabeth Anson. She is a barrister, has been a magistrate and also sits on the boards of lots of charitable organisations. She gave a short speech telling us how important it is to get the word out to the visually impaired that our service exists for them.

After the official bit of the AGM, we moved on to the ‘entertainments’ which featured a blonde woman called Sally in a lovely floral dress singing Songs from the Shows to the accompaniment of a pianist. It wasn’t as dire as it sounds. Sally has a lovely voice (she sang at both of Ann’s daughters’ weddings) and gave us a varied repertoire which included a number from Salad Days which took me back. It was Jane’s I Sit in the Sun which was quite ironic given the fact that it’s rained all month.

After the song, ex-chairman John, having noticed I’d been mouthing the lyrics, asked how I knew the show. I said I’d played Tim in a production of Salad Days to which he replied that one of his first girlfriends performed in the original West End production and had driven him crazy learning the songs. I told him he should have heard them with Australian accents…he may never have recovered. it is a VERY English musical.

We finished with a rousing rendition (if that’s even possible) of Edelweiss, which everyone joined in on. I felt like I was in Switzerland. At least it wasn’t Tomorrow Belongs to Me.

After the ‘entertainments’, I was approached by one of the office staff asking if I could come and meet one of our listeners who had specially asked to meet me. She was sat in the front row, with her guide dog (who stood up and wagged her tail every time we applauded the singer, clearly thinking the applause was for her). She told me she loved hearing an Australian voice in amongst all the very English ones.

I mentioned my sports reports and she said she always switched off before the sports report. Oh well.

We then all indulged in tea and cake and a chat before I trudged back across the rain drenched park to a warm and dry house.

Today on the way to the Talking Newspaper, I spotted the most magnificent cherry tree in full blossom. It sits in a small triangle of land between a couple of paths, completely isolated from anything. It looked simply beautiful and made everything look full of spring. Given that the day was bright and sunny helped a lot.

It was a late Talking Newspaper again this week but at least everyone turned up who was supposed to…a vast improvement over last week. And I had a very nice compliment. Rosemary, one of my readers, said that I should read all the sports reports because I do it so well. I said I’d love to do all the sports reports except it’s actually impossible. She agreed with a sigh, saying all the other presenters would love it since they all despise the sports reports.

I even had Mo (another of my readers) saying how much she enjoyed the sports report at the end of the recording when she said goodbye! I think I’m becoming the sporty legend. I’m going to ask for my own theme tune next.

Anyway, the reading went well and we had a bit of a chuckle and managed to finish nice and early as there were none of the hassles from last week to slow us down. Apart from walking the dogs early on, that’s about all today held – I’m ignoring the housework as that’s clearly not very interesting.

Though, I should tell you the Tale of the Sausages.

On Tuesday when I visited the butcher, he had his usual display of sausages for me to choose from. The usual varieties were there (pork, pork and apple, pork and leek, pork and sage, pork and more pork) but sitting at the end of the display was a pile of duck, spring onion and Hoisin sauce sausages (I can hear Dad saying ‘yuck’ from here).

I pointed at them, mouth watering at the very idea and recited the ingredients, salivating freely over each one. The young butcher serving me was not as enthusiastic, saying he couldn’t see it. I looked at him in horror.

“There’s a party in my mouth and they’re invited,” I informed him in no uncertain terms. “Give me six of ‘em!”

Well, I had them tonight and BY GOD THEY WERE GOOD! A brilliant idea – both on the part of the butcher for inventing them and me for buying them. Apart from old Gloucester spot sausages, they’re the best I’ve ever had. I think I may be addicted to these babies.

But enough about sausages (even the second best sausages in the world) here’s the blossom.

Cherry blossom hiding in Farnham

I did a swap with another presenter way back in January to lead the Alton edition of the Talking Newspaper for today. I’m never that keen on the Alton edition because it’s the last if the day and means a late one. Still, it at least gives the morning to do things, unlike the middle session which is neither one thing or the other. Actually, and to be totally honest, I like all of them.

So, it was an early morning walk up the foggy park with the poodles, during which they had a very half hearted chase of a greyhound and I spent quite a long time trying to get a decent photograph of a bird sitting at the top of a tree singing continuously. Actually, the birds were incredibly loud this morning. A whole bunch of noisy sparrows were doing their best to drown out any traffic noise up near the castle. The tree they were all in was quivering with their song.

Here's another of those birds that I want Mirinda to identify for me

And just to show you that I didn’t imagine the fog this morning…

Very eerie morning

After our walk, I busied myself around the house for bit before heading into Farnham.

When I arrived at the studio it was to a bit of mayhem and backup. The engineer for the first session hadn’t turned up and Mary had frantically rung up Sue (the engineer) to find out where she was. Sue, innocently explained that she’d swapped with someone. Unfortunately the name hadn’t been changed on the engineer’s roster. Mary then rang the person she’d swapped with, Mike.

Mike was shocked. He’d completely forgotten. In fact, on the phone, Mary asked where he was. Mike replied that he was in his lounge room and asked where she was. Mary explained she was at the studio waiting for him. He dropped the phone and quickly raced in.

This meant that they started very late so that when I arrived, the second lot of readers were still in the edit suite and the recording had only just begun. Of course, there’s an inbuilt buffer to allow for over runs so this wasn’t too big a problem. I settled in and started my own stuff.

Peter, the next engineer, turned up and was getting a bit toey because he’s been spoiled with early starting sessions. He found stuff to do around the office though, so he wasn’t too stressed.

Eventually Di turned up (one of my readers) to find that she couldn’t start straight away because the other group was still in the edit room. Di likes to get there (very) early because she’s a bit slow on the edits. I think I’ve explained before abut Di. She’s the ex-English teacher who feels pain every time she reads the illiterate articles often printed in the local paper. I sympathise with her.

Eventually, Mary and her readers emerged and the whole story came out. Poor Mary has to eat every two hours and was feeling a bit tense (as was her husband who’d popped his head in, looking for her) but managed to get away pretty quick smart.

The second group then filed into the studio and Di helped me set up for editing. Then David turned up (my second reader) and we all settled down for some solid word cutting.

After about half an hour, I suddenly started worrying about our third reader (Sally) who hadn’t turned up yet. Eventually I rang her up in case she’d forgotten. The person who answered the phone didn’t know where she was or what she was doing but promised she’d try and contact her. I returned to writing my sports report. And then my phone rang.

It was the woman I spoke to about Sally saying that she had had to dash off to Bedford (or somewhere like that) because her mother-in-law had suddenly taken ill. When reminded about us, she said she’d forgotten all about it! I returned to the editing room and told them it would be just us this week.

This means that her quarter of the stories now had to be shared out between the three of us. We’d also need to edit them. Poor Di! She was starting to get a bit stressed. David and I tried to lighten the mood with some well judged humour. It almost worked.

The Paul, our engineer, turned up. I explained to him how everything had over run. Paul cracks me up. He tells everyone he’s deaf as a post and, unless you talk into his face, he has a lot of difficulty knowing what you’re saying. He wears two hearing aids and not the little, invisible ones either! They look like NHS issue from 1943. It’s very funny during a recording when your sound engineer tells you he’s deaf as a post. Genius.

Anyway, we eventually managed to get into the studio and flew through our edition, finishing half an hour early, which pleased Di no end. After all the mess, it was quite a good recording though it makes a big difference with one less reader. It’s the first time I’ve had this on my watch. You do a lot more reading! At least it felt that way.

We left Paul to clean up the recording as we all left for home. I’ll have to go through the same thing again next week as I’m rostered on for another Alton edition. Let’s hope everyone turns up.

What a busy Thursday! It started with an early morning and ended with a late night with nary time in the middle for rest.

First up, we had a viewing this morning at 9am so I was up early, generally moving things around to make them more presentable, before hitching the poodles up for an early, freezing walk.

Actually the temperature was slightly above freezing until the wind hit up in the Avenue of Trees. I’m always amazed when winds from the frozen north (Russia) are still bitterly cold when they reach us. It was something like -20 in Moscow this morning and the wind hadn’t warmed up one little bit.

For all that, the park still looked lovely. As the real estate agent said to me, whenever she walks around the park, when she passes our street, she’s very jealous of our being so close. I’m not sure why she doesn’t buy our house then.

Our castle on a winter's morning

There were a few hardy souls up and about with their dogs but none of them within hailing distance so we wandered, more-or-less, unmolested, returning in time to meet the agent at the front door. I was fooled by the lack of two unknown cars at the end of the street, otherwise I’d have taken the girls around again.

The absent car was easily explained, however, when the viewer came out of the house. She is a friend or relative of a woman who lives a few doors down from us. I know because the friend or relative was with her and said hello.

The woman who’d come to see the house actually liked it very much (or so she told the realo) but wanted to think about it (not that that means anything, we’re still ‘thinking about’ houses we viewed years ago). The one thing she was disappointed in, and the realo thought I’d get a good chuckle out of it, was the lack of lawn. Yes, that’s right, she didn’t like the path. Our wonderful, magical path. How is such a thing possible? As Mirinda said, had the path not been there, she wouldn’t have seen a path so much as a swamp leading to the back.

I’m fairly sure I couldn’t sell to someone who didn’t like our path. If I had my way, I’d have it written into the deeds of the house that the path had to stay. It would be an awful waste for it to be dug up gain before it was twelve months old!

With that frightful announcement, the realo left and I quickly grabbed my stuff for the Talking Newspaper. By the end of 2011 I’d been swapped out of all my February recordings by other presenters with more pressing engagements so I guess it was only natural that I’d end up swapping some back in.

David rang me two weeks ago. He’d been given some work to do and couldn’t attend today so would I swap him one of my April dates. And so I was down for today’s Haslemere edition of the paper at 10am.

The group doing the Farnham edition were there, quietly beavering away in the editing room. As it turned out, it was but a short-lived quiet once Judy and I started gabbing away. Judy is one of the other presenters. Included in her team were the Evans’, who I’ve spoken of before. After their recording they told me they listened to our last recording with great joy because they love the sound of my voice. This is odd because I love the sound of theirs’!

After the Mutual Admiration Society had disbursed (by them having to go into the studio) I set to with my own presenter duties.

On my team (well, David’s team, really, though two of them had been swapped as well) were Ron, Lieutenant Colonel David and Christine, with whom I had so much fun late last year with all the stories about Christmas goats, something she still laughs about in quiet moments. Pete the ex-pilot was our engineer.

The recording went smoothly enough with only a few fluffs and nothing as serious as to warrant swearing. I even managed to read my own writing this time. The most interesting find was one of the Letters to the Editor which was from someone who was equally as damning about Neighbourhood Watch. Mary Stewart, the writer, went so far as to write to the theatre and tell them it was rubbish. Here’s a few bits from her letter:

As long term fans of the playwright we eagerly looked forward to this production and have since contacted the Yvonne Arnaud theatre to express our disappointment, also mentioning that we couldn’t decide whether the theatregoers who left during the play, or didn’t return after the interval, were bored or cold, as the temperature in the auditorium was uncomfortably cool.

I disagree with the last bit. If anything, the theatre is generally too hot for me though, in saying that, the fact that I didn’t notice the temperature probably means it was too cold for normal people. She continues:

It is appreciated that we all have different tastes, but despite the cast doing their utmost, in our opinion, the play and the set were third rate and uninspiring.

Go Mary! She also gives a reason for all the wonderful reviews the play received in Ayckbourn’s home town, where all his plays premiere:

Perhaps the glowing reviews received at the premiere in Scarborough, can be compared to the story of The Emperor’s New Clothes.

I must say that that cheered me up, considerably. Not that I needed cheering up particularly but it did put a spring in my step on the walk home. Apparently the reviewer in the local paper was also less than complimentary, which prompted Mary’s letter.

Back at home, I just had time to feed the dogs, shower and change because I was soon out again with Dawn. Weeks ago she asked if I’d like to go and see some guy called Steve Knightly at the Farnham Maltings and, having never heard of him, I said yes. Dawn’s taste is pretty much as eclectic as mine so I figured I’d enjoy it. At least I knew it wouldn’t be some of that awful punk stuff that Nicktor likes so much.

Well, it was fantastic. He is part of a duo called Show of Hands, the other guy being Phil who, apparently looks remarkably like the eccentric Marquis of Bath. Dawn looked him up when she arrived home and said he did. Or does…I mean, he’s not dead or anything.

The thing that struck me about Steve was his amazing stage presence. He has a natural charisma that is like a magnet. He came on at the beginning to introduce his support act and we immediately were transfixed by him. I should add that about 99% of the audience were already firm fans, hanging on every word he spoke.

The support act (a couple Steve had heard busking who he walked up to and asked if they’d play support for his upcoming tour) was a couple. Phillip Henry and Hannah Martin were fantastic. He plays (among other things) a mean slide guitar while she fiddles and, sometimes strums her banjo. They play, what I would call, modern folk music with a lot of wandering around the tune in a sort of jazz style.

Phillip Henry and his slide guitar

They are both incredibly talented and their love of music is obvious. I particularly liked Hannah’s song about her grandfather (The Painter) for which she played her banjo. (You can listen to it on their website – it’s the fourth one down on the left.) Her voice is also quite special. My only criticism (and it’s tiny) is that I thought Phillip’s slide guitar was a bit loud and overpowering. It tended to dominate a bit too much, as if the sound engineer (if there was such a thing) only had ears for the treble. Even so, they were superb.

And then, following a short interval in which I bought their CD, Steve came on. He was just brilliant. It has to be one of the best concerts I’ve ever seen. I’d compare it to Don McLean who managed to hold the entire Hodern Pavilion mesmerised for his entire concert, which was just him, his guitar and a chair.

Similarly Steve was alone on stage apart from a load of waiting instruments and he held us all gripped. He is not only incredibly talented as a singer, musician and song writer, he’s also very funny. I would recommend him to anyone who likes folk music and will definitely go and see him again if I get the chance.

Steve Knightly tuning up at the Farnham Maltings

And that was it. Dawn dropped me off at home to a couple of manic poodles. Actually, that’s not entirely true. Carmen was manic but Day-z gets very sulky if we go out more than once a day so she basically ignored me for a bit.

Another Talking Newspaper today, so it was off early to pick up the papers and start my editing. Since I was there on my own for the first hour, I thought I’d get a photo of the studio.

Where I sometimes 'work'

I sit in the right front, where the smaller bit of paper is while the engineer sits to my right, in front of all the equipment. The engineer has two chairs and uses the far one as a table. The three readers sit the other side of the desk. It’s very cosy though today it was quite cold because I hadn’t turned the heaters on. But that wasn’t my only mistake.

When we make a mistake (a stumble or just plain stuff it up) we are supposed to say ‘sorry’ and then go back to the beginning of the sentence. This gives the engineer something to edit out which retains the smooth flow of the recording. We have to keep picking up some of the readers on it because they just stumble and repeat the word. For this reason, quite a few stumbles remain in the recording, which is a shame.

Having been an actor, I’m quite used to saying ‘sorry’ and going back to the beginning of the sentence, so I don’t usually have any problem with it. Also because I was once an actor, my language sometimes leaves a lot to be desired.

Each time I go into the studio I go through a mental check-list, the final point is not to swear. It’s a mantra: “I must not swear. I must not swear.” Apart from the average age of my fellow volunteers, I’m also acutely aware that most of them are active church goers who might not be used to a course Australian who grew up in Sydney’s western suburbs.

I also write my own sports report which I scribble out before going in to record. My handwriting, at the best of times, is pretty abysmal, but when I’m in a hurry, it looks a little like drunk Sanskrit seen through ink blots. Normally this is fine but today, for some reason, I kept stumbling. Three times I stumbled, each time saying ‘Sorry’ and going back to the start of the sentence like the good boy I am. At one stage I said “I can’t read my own writing!” which had the others chuckling.

The fourth time I stumbled was on the word ‘control’ which I thought said ‘coumjhuy’ or something like that. Of course, I stopped. I blame the frustration with my continual lack of coherent penmanship but I said “shit“! I then quickly said sorry about thirty times. Sue, the engineer, laughing incredulously, took note of the position of the recording and I continued, finishing without any more hiccoughs.

Afterwards, we all had a jolly good laugh at my stumbling and I once more apologised for swearing. Sue then asked if I’d like to keep it in the recording. The others thought this hilarious. Sue then explained herself, saying she meant the bit about my inability to read my own writing not me saying shit.

Rough as guts, Gaz, strikes again, I’m afraid. Still, Sue will edit my foul mouth out of the recording and just leave my observations on my own failings. So, hopefully, all will be well. As long as she does!

Anyway, after getting home, the sun was shining so we popped up to the park. While the sun didn’t last and we were eventually drizzled on by a sudden spring-like shower, we saw quite a few other dogs and their owners.

We met up with Leonard, the big white dog. The one the poodles demur to. Here he is with a woman who’s not his owner. He was actually quite interested in her four dogs. He’s generally pretty sedate but he was acting quite playful today. The girls, of course, ignored him.

Leonard, the big white dog

They didn’t ignore a little chocolate brown King Charles spaniel that stopped in front of them and laid down for them to have a good sniff. They were so intent on sniffing and picking on him that they failed to notice he had a mate who had been checking out the woods. The first they knew was when a streak of black and brown came pouncing onto them. It was hilarious. The spaniels’ owner and I burst out laughing as the poodles scattered under the now even numbers. They really are pathetic.

I saw (and heard) lots of birds but they were either too far away or I had to put the camera away because of the rain. I did manage to get the robin again, still yapping away.

I know you're watching me but I just don't care

A long time ago, way back near the end of 2009, I realised how wise it is to write down anything you are likely to want to say before saying it in the Talking Newspaper studio. While rather good at the old ad lib another life ago, the words refuse to come quite as seamlessly as I age. I know what I want to say but the words fall about in my head like a bag full of Scrabble tiles. My reasoning was borne out today though, fortunately, not by me.

I’ve probably mentioned June and John before. They’ve been reading at FATN for over 13 years and are by far the best readers (in my opinion). They have the amazing knack of making everything sound like they are just sitting chatting to you. I always love when I get to work with them, as I did today.

Everything was going along fine with John cracking me up every chance he had. Then June started reading a story about some sort of environmentally friendly village hall (or other). The story went fine and at the end she started describing the photograph. She struggled for quite some time before calling a halt to it all. We were all in fits (as was she). She said she just couldn’t think of the words she wanted because her brain went blank.

It was then highly relevant when someone read a piece about forgetting things as you get older.

The other reader today was a lady called Anne who I’ve not worked with before. She explained, afterwards, that she can’t be as clever as the rest of us and has to write everything down. I showed my copious notes and told her I write EVERYTHING down, leaving nothing to chance. (Actually, when I do go ‘off script’ I tend to “um” and “ah” a lot, so best I don’t.) Anne was very relieved.

Meanwhile I think John was quietly pleased he hadn’t slipped up (he never writes anything down…show off) and his wife had, because she’s usually very, very good.

Walking back afterwards, the sky quite pleasantly decided to turn blue (it was grey the rest of the day) and I thought the Jolly Sailor pub looked quite appealing. I had a swift pint before continuing on to Waitrose.

Everytime I see this sign, I think of grandad

Earlier in the day I spotted a squirrel eating an apple. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a squirrel eating an apple. Unfortunately I didn’t have my good camera with me so the photo below is not that great (the squirrel was hiding behind the branches and, in fact, when I moved around for a clearer shot, he darted up the tree away from my prying lens) but it was such an odd thing to see that I couldn’t help but include it.

No dentist for this fella

Much earlier in the day, I took the poodles for an early walk where we met Rex, a puppy who just wants to play. He was with his owner who had a second dog on a lead. She spent all the time I saw her yelling for Rex to come back…which is how I know his name.

Of course Rex just wanted to play with the poodles but they were having none of it. Carmen squealed, Day-z ran away and Rex just went and found a much friendlier piece of wood instead.

Stuff you two...look what I've found!

I had an early Talking Newspaper date today so off I trotted into the fierce winds and dart-like rain. It was so bad that Mirinda texted me to say she was being splashed by the Thames when she walked to her ferry. The weather so far this year has been exceptionally ferocious (apart from the day we went to the Isle of Wight). I’m hoping for improvements at any time.

Anyway, we had great fun at the Talking Newspaper recording because I was feeling cheeky. I had a great team (one of them I’d never met before) and there was a lot of laughter. Always a good thing. I thought my sports report was particularly good. I might put on the blog when it arrives on Saturday if I still think so when I hear it back.

Later in the day, the weather improved and has been getting steadily calmer (and colder). Tomorrow maybe lovely.

And a big hello to Claire! Nice to have you back.

I was at Talking Newspaper today. The last for 2011. Well, the last for 2011 for me at least. There’s a few more weeks yet. Actually I think it goes right up to Christmas week. But I am free until January.

As usual we had a jolly good laugh. Being close to Christmas, there was naturally quite a few stories featuring goats and a rather wonderful news story about a woman who suddenly gave birth in the back of her new car.

I had some great stories to read but one piece I didn’t get to read was my letter. The reason I didn’t get to read it was because time had run out by the time it was my time to read a letter. It was too good to ignore and so, as a sort of compensation, I’m going to include the gist of it here. I say ‘gist’…more like my reworking of someone else’s letter.

The letter came from someone called ‘S’ who lives in Castle Street. S wanted to tell the (local) world about a recent shopping experience. Here is the (reworked) story:

Last November S went to Elphick’s and purchased six four piece espresso cup and saucer sets. S liked the pattern and thought they’d make nice presents. Five of them did indeed make nice presents, the sixth set (for reasons I forget) did not get given away. S decided to put it away in the secret present store at the back of the house until a present was needed for some festivity or other when it could be called into play. A sort of reserve present, if you will.

It wasn’t used at all and so, S retrieved it in order to use it as a Christmas present, now a year later. Previously S hadn’t opened it (she had six identical sets so why should she?) and was astonished to discover that instead of the four cups and saucers there were only two. Oops. That’s a great way to ruin a four piece set.

S was now in a quandary. How could they be returned to Elphick’s? The receipt was long gone and who would believe this outrageous tale of woe. S decided to try; after all Elphick’s could, at worst, just laugh. S took the box into Elphick’s and started to explain the situation to a wide eyed shop assistant who was getting more confused by the second.

And then Sharon walked by. Sharon spotted the crockery and immediately sprung up, grabbing S and asking if a couple of cups and saucers were missing. S, shocked and surprised nodded. Sharon, a huge look of relief on her face told S to wait as she went and retrieved the missing items.

Apparently, Sharon had come across the odd items last year after S had purchased the sets. She couldn’t figure out who had bought them but assumed they’d be back. Sharon placed the cups and saucers in a secure part of the store room and left them there. And lo and behold, here was S, coming back for them.

Sharon wrapped the missing cups and saucers, packed them in the box with their long lost siblings and handed it all to S who was simply amazed at the wonderful Elphick’s service. S was so amazed that a letter to the local paper was immediately required and was duly written and despatched with all haste.

While I thought it was a wonderful letter with a very Christmas-like moral, it also told me something about Sharon. Not only the fact that she went out of her way for a complete stranger but also that she’s worked at Elphick’s for more than a year. I quite like the idea that we have a family department store in our town where the staff work there for periods measured in years rather than weeks.

Anyway, the rest of the recording went very well with many laughs at the expense of the Christmas goat stories (and Malcolm, the engineer’s story about carrying a sheep in a nativity when he was ten and worried it may relieve itself while in his arms) and various other weird and wonderful exploits one only gets in local newspapers. It was soon time to meander home and to a slowly improving Mirinda who is still in the grip of her cold.

It was a rubbish day, weatherwise, so Mirinda spent the day inside, keeping the dogs company and working. It also means I didn’t take any bird photos today. So here’s a green finch from the other day. He was hiding in the twisty tree but I managed to spot him.

I'm watching you, camera boy.

And, finally, something I spotted in Waitrose. For anyone who doesn’t know me…I ALWAYS make my own gravy. I think instant gravy granules are a crime against humanity. However, I know many people disagree with me and so they boil their water and pour it onto their Bisto (or Gravox in Australia) and make a very rich and (usually) quite thick pseudo gravy.

As far as I’m aware, this is a pretty fast way of making gravy. Possibly the fastest – though you do have to wait for the water to boil, I guess. However, it was with some surprise that I spotted these in Waitrose today.

More instant than instant

Instant gravy in a tube? What the hell is that? It’s not stock…it’s gravy. I can see it now. The family at Sunday lunch. Granny asks for gravy. A grandchild hands her the tube of Bisto. She squirts it all over her Yorkshire pud with the congealed distaste of someone who once took the extra three minutes to boil a kettle of water.

Humanity has no hope if this is the result of evolution.

Last night, Carmen was so morose that I decided we’d all sleep in the lounge. In order to protect the cushions, I opened up a few garbage bags to put under the dog blanket. I needn’t have bothered.

While she didn’t empty her bladder, she did shuffle around all night, in her discomfort, making crackly noises with ever movement. Which kept waking me up. It felt like I was back to the aching wrist insomnia of a few weeks ago.

Eventually (at 5:30am), I gave up trying and made a coffee. Apart from meaning I was exhausted, it meant I was awake when mum sent me her great news.

I’ve managed to clear most things this week so I can spend it with Carmen (stopping her running, jumping, gnawing at stitches) but was unable to find someone to swap my Talking Newspaper slot today.

Whenever someone rostered on is unable to make a particular date, it is up to that person to find someone to swap dates. I tried almost everyone but couldn’t find anyone. Short notice didn’t help.

So, exhausted and worried, I locked the dogs into the dining room/kitchen (after putting plenty of newspaper down on the floor and giving Day-z my well thumbed copy of the Emergency Nursing Bible) and set off. I then spent the rest of the morning worried about Carmen.

That’s probably why I made so many mistakes during the recording even though Paul, the engineer, very kindly said it was a good session.

I hurried home afterwards to find a bouncy Day-z and a confused and wobbly three legged Carmen. Again, I needn’t have bothered with the newspaper as it was simply used for play. Or shredding ready for recycling.

When I opened the back door, Carmen went straight out to the toilet. The first time since leaving the vet! She has a seriously amazing bladder. But the best news is she ate all her dinner tonight! She had nothing last night.

I wasn’t here to take many bird photos today but I did get this one while there was still some light left.

Birds playing peek-a-boo

I was greeted with real enthusiasm at the Talking Newspaper today. It was my first time back since breaking my wrist. Of course, everyone I saw was very sympathetic, ‘oohing’ and ‘arghing’ at the right places as I told the story of my stupidity…which improves with each subsequent retelling. For a while I was telling people I did it snow boarding but ran into a problem when asked where. I have now changed it to sky diving. Much safer.

Anyway, we had a jolly time reading the Farnham edition. My headline was particularly jolly being about a guy who faked his own death and was caught when he used his HMV staff discount card. This led to the police examining his death certificate and finding his fingerprints on it. Talk about an idiot.

While I was away, Dave and his mate worked steadily through the morning – I took delivery of the bricks before they arrived – and finished the borders either side of the path. When I returned, they’d laid quite a few bricks and it’s really starting to look like a real path.

Day 4

I took these after they’d gone and it was quite dark. For this second shot I used the flash. I should explain that the bricks in the centre look lighter because of brick dust and not because they’re different!

Day 4 with flash

I’ll get a better shot tomorrow morning when the sun is actually around!