The House Husband

Yesterday I had a somewhat full to the brim day. Actually, if you could fill something beyond the brim, that’s pretty much what yesterday was like. An above the brim day.

In short, I three coat varnished the window sill in the stairwell, I put up the new hurdle fence to replace the one that I removed Wednesday, I had a Talking Newspaper and I spent some quality time with some limescale.

In the end, I didn’t eat dinner until 10pm and when it was time to go to bed, blogging was the last thing on mind…actually that’s not entirely true. I remember starting to think that I just wanted to go to sleep but didn’t actually get as far as ‘wanted’.

Today, however, it was back to work for a lovely rest. If you call research a rest. Like I do.

Anyway, for some reason, I had a lot of geologists today. I managed six object records and they included six geologists for me to find out about.

First there was Adam Sedgwick, the so-called father of geological education. An amazing man who managed to combine a belief in an Intelligent Creator and the understanding of rocks and strata. He, basically, was responsible for the Devonian and Cambrian periods…well, not for the periods themselves but, rather for the proposition that they existed. He took a very young Charles Darwin out for a few days rock chopping once, back in the early 19th century only to damn him to hell after The Origin of Species was published. OK, that’s a bit strong but he was very displeased with how wayward Mr Darwin had become in his advancing years.

Following Sedgwick (and don’t worry, I’m only going to give three of them and not all six!) was Henry de la Beche, an all round nice guy who everyone loved. He clearly wasn’t your typical argumentative type of geologist and, in fact, was a bit of a rough housing soldier type until the wars ran out and he had to try something else. Fortunately, his mum lived at Lyme Regis so he went back home to live. Here he met Mary Anning, the fossil woman from Lyme Regis and they became great chums. His views were somewhat at odds with Sedgwick when it came to the Cambrian and Devonian periods but, rather than get into an argument, Henry drew funny little cartoons.

But my all time favourite has to be Lyon Playfair. An amazingly amazing guy. Did everything that happened to happen along. A great name and a truly great guy. He eventually settled into chemistry and larked about with how gas related to geology and that sort of high falutin’ stuff. But the best thing was that he was made Postmaster General in 1873 because, as the biography I read states, he invented the postcard in 1870.

Now, I was going to leave it at that because it’s just really cool that a chemist should take a bit of time out of his busy schedule and Bunsen burners just to invent a small piece of cardboard with a picture on one side but, since getting home, I have discovered that the postcard was invented in Austria in 1869 by Dr. Emanuel Herrmann or by Theodore Hook in 1840 as a form of a joke at the expense of the postal workers or by a bunch of Medieval nuns locked away in some dark monastery somewhere. (Don’t you just LOVE the Internet with its infinite versions of history?)

Now the information I use at the Science Museum is generally pretty good but I think, what the bio meant was that Playfair INTRODUCED the idea of postcards, possibly after seeing the Austrian ones a year before. but that just doesn’t sound as funny.

Which reminds me…at the Talking Newspaper yesterday I read a piece about the strange things people take to the council’s Recycling Centre. One of the items listed was a two ton truck full of stamps. I guess some people just don’t know when to stop collecting.

Anyway, enough about geology (and stamps…and postcards)! At lunchtime I popped over to the V&A and went for a wander around my favourite part, the Medieval Renaissance gallery.

The Medieval Renaissance gallery, the V&A

It’s so light with such wonderful figures in it. Even the really awful things, like the martyrdom of St Margaret, are exquisite and excite such emotion. And here is Margaret, looking absolutely serene in the perfect belief that she’ll live on for eternity just because she refused to say she wasn’t a Christian. Crazy and misguided maybe but still, it’s a beautiful piece of art.

St Margaret being martyred

I was also quite taken by a couple of angels. Rather than being made from stone or wood or clay these two chaps were first cast in terracotta and then covered in tin. This might sound quite odd but they have an amazing glow which makes you wander back for a second (and third) look to make sure they are still there and haven’t been tricking you all along.

A lovely tin angel, waits by my grave

I had a lovely wander and went back via the Indian statues. I love the ancient stories and gods. Like Ganesh who was a bit of a party boy but who accidentally had his head cut off. Luckily, the guy who had the sword apologised and said he’d give him the head of the first animal that went by. Sadly it was an elephant and now he has a big trunk and floppy ears but…and I don’t say this lightly…at least it wasn’t a fly.

But I didn’t want to talk about Ganesh (though he’s such a Bacchanalian, I can’t help but love him) because today I found out about Durga. She is pretty amazing. She is actually the female energy of the god Shiva and has eight arms. In each of these arms, she holds a weapon so she can cut down the evil forces that beset the world. I’m not sure how a bit of female energy can have arms but then I don’t understand how the Holy Ghost works either. I just gloss over those things.

Now I’m a bit of Wonder Woman fan but I reckon Durga could easily take her down. But don’t take my word for it. Here she is, killing Mahishasura just as he transforms out of his buffalo disguise. (This stuff is just brilliant.)

Druga the destroyer of evil and baddies in general

I reckon our new house just might need a little Durga of its own.

Before I talk about my extremely stressful day, I really must answer my mum’s comment. Dubstep is a type of music. According to Wikipedia it is a ‘genre of electronic dance music that originated in south London, England. Its overall sound has been described as “tightly coiled productions with overwhelming bass lines and reverberant drum patterns, clipped samples, and occasional vocals”.’ So now you know. I’m pretty sure you’d describe it as ‘noise’.

But, back to today. I’m not sure whether I’ve described how the Talking Newspaper day is organised so I’m going to. If it’s not news then skip this bit.

Because we read the papers for three different areas each Thursday, there are three shifts of readers, engineer and presenter. I really like Farnham because it’s the first one. It means I’m home nice and early and can get things done around the house that require the attention. My least favourite is the Alton papers because it’s last and I’m not home until 6pm. Mind you, what I generally do is complete any tasks before I leave. In the middle is Haslemere which gives me a bit of time either side.

So, basically, I have it pretty much sussed. I have my rostered times and days and go to the newspaper office, pick up the papers and then on to the studio. It’s always worked perfectly. I used the past tense deliberately.

Today I turned up at the newspaper office and asked for the papers only to be told that “David has already collected them.” This was odd. I asked a few times just to make sure it was the Haslemere papers and she told me same thing each time. I walked out of the office, a frown almost furrowing my brow.

I was undecided how to proceed. If I’d written down the wrong edition on the calendar then I could check at home on the master roster however, I could also check by walking to the studio (I was about halfway betwixt the two). My biggest fear was that if I had the time wrong then I might actually be down for the Alton slot. Or, worse still, there could have been changes that I didn’t know about. I dithered for a bit, drinking my Starbucks outside the Royal Mail exchange before deciding the best option was to walk to the studio and find out what the devil was going on.

And it was hot today! Even walking the dogs in the park this morning was warmer than it’s been for a while. This is quite annoying when it’s actually cold enough to put the central heating on at night. not that I do but I see that others would. Actually the walk was deeply embarrassing.

Sometimes, Day-z thinks she’s a dog. Rather than a bitch, I mean. I have no idea why or where she discovered this strange belief. She will hump her sister. Which really annoys Carmen. Particularly when she’s asleep. Which is most of the time.

The strangest thing is I have no idea where she found out how to do it. I mean they have never had sex with other dogs (I’m 99% certain) or, to my knowledge, actually noticed dogs having sex. Still, Day-z quite often manages to simulate it with her sister.

Generally, these displays of odd sisterly behaviour are confined to the house (and sometimes garden) but today, to my absolute horror, she did it in the park. And there were people everywhere. I was mortified! Though I’m pretty sure no-one realised they were both female, as I hurried them off into Badger’s Wood.

Anyway, that’s by the by. I wound up at the studio to find David happily cutting up the Haslemere papers smiling but confused when I turned up. I smiled back and grabbed the roster. No, I was right. I was slotted down for the Haslemere edition and his name was nowhere to be seen. And it was like a light bulb going off over his head.

He had made a swap with the presenter for the Alton paper but had written down Haslemere instead. Given there wasn’t much I could do, I volunteered to take his Alton and left him to his scissoring. I picked the papers up on the way back home.

This had seriously eaten into my time so I spent the hour I had cutting up the papers on the dining table before heading out again.

To cut this overly long story much shorter…I presented the Alton paper and didn’t manage to get home until 6pm, all my jobs neglected. I could have worked till dawn, slaving away or I could take the sensible option and not go to work tomorrow. I was sensible.

One good thing was the wonderful afternoon light as I walked home. This is the park bench just as you enter off Bear Lane.

Afternoon light in Farnham Park

And to be entirely fair, it’s not like I didn’t do anything today. I organised for a real estate agent to come over on Tuesday, I discussed the replacement of the side fence with our neighbour then purchased the panels to rebuild it, I rang up and corrected an order from the bird food place we use because they’d forgotten something and I walked the dogs.

I was at the Talking Newspaper today, presenting the Haslemere & Liphook News. I think it went rather well. I had a great team of readers (and my engineer was Malcolm, who sounds and acts like Biggles and was, in fact, in the RAF) and I didn’t make any mistakes.

Actually, if I’m being really honest, I did make a sort of mistake. As we approach the end of a piece we’re reading, we are supposed to raise our hand then drop it to indicate to the next reader that it is their turn to speak. By doing this, the reading can be continuous rather than stopping and starting between each reader. It works well and is simple to do.

It was at the end of What’s On (I think) and I the next reader wasn’t ready (his headphones were round his neck and he’d knocked his microphone). Unfortunately I couldn’t see he wasn’t ready as I was reading the What’s On stuff so, as usual, I just announced his name and hit his mike button. At the same time as I released the button I looked at him.

The poor thing looked like a rabbit caught in headlights. It took him at least 30 seconds to get himself ready to speak and then his mike was wrong so another 30 seconds for that before he was actually reading his next story. Given we measure stories in 90 second slots means he’d almost used up his allotted time!

Of course, that’s not a problem because the engineer will have removed the big pause during editing. The only really problem is that I have to keep an eye on the clock in order to know when to change from one track to the next. It meant I had to add roughly a minute to it each time.

I can just hear my wife laughing at the fact that I was forced to engage in mathematics on the fly but I can assure her, adding a single minute is something even I can do (though I’m not sure about Ben who apparently has worse maths than me). The difficulty is communicating with the engineer, silently, trying to make him realise I’m allowing for the minute. Anyway, it was all fine and the session was actually very enjoyable.

The biggest bonus of the day was missing the rain, which I did three times. I took the dogs for a walk early (before I had to leave) and it started raining as we returned to the front door. Then it poured while I was in the studio recording but stopped by the time I left. And, finally, I was standing in Waitrose waiting to be served when the heavens opened up, drenching about a dozen people wandering passed. Again, it stopped by the time I left the shop.

On the way to the recording, I picked up my new glasses which made an instant difference.

My new Oakley glasses

I think they look pretty cool.

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.

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

Fortunately, when the heavens opened and Farnham was drenched for the umpteenth time this week, I was in the studio recording another edition for the Talking Newspaper.

It was the Alton edition this week, which, apart from anything else, means a late start and finish. I had two chaps reading for me today who I’ve never met before. This still amazes me after all this time. My third reader was Lindsey, who’ve I read with many times.

They were a jolly group and we had a fun old time, chuckling away and generally being a bit cheeky…well, I was, anyway. I had to improvise during the sport section a bit because of the weather last weekend. It was so bad, there was no cricket results due to there being no cricket! The one story was of a disastrous game which ended up being incomplete. Though it was accompanied by a lovely photograph of a rainbow over the ground during one of the drier periods of play.

We describe the photographs for our listeners. Apparently they particularly like this. It makes sense, if you think about it. Most of the photographs are of smiling children and local dignitaries receiving or handing out giant cheques, so it was quite nice to get one of a rainbow over a cricket pitch. I also had a rather nice one of a water vole, poking its nose between some reeds on a river bank.

And, speaking of cricket, I had a nice little piece about the first game of cricket played at a particular ground in Hampshire (I can’t remember, and have never heard of, the place) where the writer explained the fact that once upon a time, runs were called notches. The reason for this was because the scorer would make notches in a piece of wood every time a batsman scored a run. I’m guessing paper was too expensive (we’re talking 1756) or just too valuable to waste on cricket scoring.

The recording all went smoothly (I’m ignoring the time I pressed the wrong button and we had to start again) and we managed to finish ahead of schedule – always a good thing.

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Mirinda asked for a photograph of the auricula theatre so here is one. It was pretty dull by the time I arrived home from the Talking Newspaper so sorry about the quality. Still, you can see all the lovely flowers. Even though none of them are actually auriculas…

The auricula theatre in bloom

I’ll get some photos of the front garden on the weekend…especially if the sun comes out!

‘Twas a very busy day. So busy, it felt like more than one. Without a sleep in between.

First up, we had decided to go and look at a cottage we’d found (and which I’d shown mum and she’d shown Audrey and Mirinda showed Susanne…and so it goes) and thought looked perfect for us. Actually it was pretty good from the details online and we thought it maybe just the solution we were looking for rather than put up with extensions and such like, here.

And so I went to guitar with Mirinda and sat outside in the table area enjoying a coffee and caramel slice. That’s two separate things and not a caramel slice with the addition of coffee granules. While I sat and read (or raced cars on my smart phone) I listened to someone torture the Flintstones theme on a trumpet. Actually, when Mirinda finished she asked me if I’d heard her. It was impossible over the trumpet, I assured her.

Mirinda bought a new guitar today. It’s a silent one. Just the right thing to play on business class flights. It’s quite an odd looking thing. You can even plug it in, add headphones and listen to yourself play while still not bothering anyone else…although the singing may be a bit disturbing.

Directly after her class, we went over to a small place called Rake. It’s just down the road from Liphook, where Dawn and Nick live. It is also where the cottage is. We went to the garden centre which is nearly all the shops in Rake, had a coffee and then on to the cottage.

The road between Liphook and Petersfield dissects Rake. Every room of the cottage was filled with the reverberations of the traffic travelling almost constantly along this road because the cottage is mere inches from the side of it. Honestly, I couldn’t hear half of what the realo said, it was so loud. Sad, really, because we could have seen ourselves living there. Perhaps if we grow profoundly deaf, it may be an option.

Yesterday I’d asked Nicktor is he was going to be in around lunchtime so we could pop in and congratulate him on his new job. And we did (Dawn was out gallivanting around museums in London), having a great old chinwag. Mirinda, while talking on the phone, hadn’t seen Nicktor for ages. They chatted about work while I feigned interest.

Back in Farnham I went shopping while Mirinda went home only to answer the telephone to Uncle Ronnie who was on his way from Devon to Horsham to attend a party. We were on the way so he was dropping in. I needed to hurry home. Which I did.

A goodly while later, Uncle Ronnie and Ivan turned up and we spent a lovely hour or so sitting out the back, eating cake and chatting about various things. It was all very jolly, although sadly short, and they soon took off for the party, two hours late.

I managed to get Mirinda to take our photo just before they left. Here I am with Uncle Ronnie.

Uncle Ronnie getting attacked by the wisteria

And here’s Ivan, successfully managing to get the campervan out of our street after a 15 point turn.

Ivan manages to turn his campervan around

It was a lovely day but a wee bit busy for us home bodies!

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I’ve included two of the tracks from this week’s Talking Newspaper. Firstly it’s
whats on quickly followed by sport.

I can’t believe that this is my 500th post. I’d hate to know how many words I’ve typed.

Anyway, today marked my 3rd Talking Newspaper presenter job and it went very well. I had a bit of a dream team, I should add. John & June the husband and wife team who always make me laugh (he’s a local vicar with a beard to rival Uncle Les) and Deidre who has been volunteering for 13 years, today being her final session.

We even had a bit of singing as Deidre talked about a night of music hall coming to the area soon. Apart from tap dancing, we had everything (including jelly) and Paul, the engineer, claimed it was the most entertaining recording session he’d ever had. Oh, if only they were all so fantastic.

When the recording arrives I’ll put up a couple of tracks (happy, mother?) rather than the usual one with just me on it…if I’m happy with the finished result that is.

So that was just about my day today – apart from spending two hours on the phone with the lovely Lauren who has organised our upcoming flights.

It did occur to me that I’ve not posted a shot of the back garden from the study window for ages and it’s looking particularly lush at the moment (with all the rain – and I spoke to a couple from Suffolk today who said the drought was very real). So, here it is, although you can’t see all the work I’ve been doing as it’s beyond the trees and shrubs:

The back garden from the study window

The other day we realised we’d been living at Farnham for four years rather than the three we thought since leaving Haslemere. Then, this morning, we found out that the puppies are actually nine years old. We have been telling people they are eight. I’m not exactly sure where that year went but it seems to have slipped from our lives like so much mist.

It was rather a good idea when I started keeping a daily journal during the pre-blog years. I can check back and relive things that I have completely forgotten. It maybe analogue and it may take a bit of searching but it’s better than forgetting forever.

Reading back to the week when the the World Cup started and all the pubs in Woking were alive with football:

31 May 2002 – Went to Yates’ pub for the first game (France v Senegal – 0-1)…Anna Glazebrook leaves today which is the end of the Launch Centre. Got home to a very big surprise. Mirinda has gone and bought two pedigree poodles…They are diabolically cute.

Of course, she then went off to Australia, leaving them with me. They have been a wonderful source of joy to us both and, while I may have been a little ‘put out’ when they first arrived, I wouldn’t be without them now.

When they go off to the kennel or spend the day at the hairdresser, I miss them terribly. Also, they put up with my ramblings with only a wag of the tail to show how much they sympathise with my point of view. Not that I’m anthropomorphizing or anything…

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As for my second presenter role at the Talking Newspaper…the edition arrived this morning and I’ve had a listen. While there’s definitely room for improvement, I’ve decided to bow down to my mother’s insistence and let you hear Track 11.

I’m sure that’s all it was because today went very well. It was my second stint as a presenter and I managed to get everything in the right order and didn’t forget to press the sound buttons. Actually, that’s not entirely true. There was one time I didn’t but that was because the person reading didn’t gesture. Anyway, it was a slight hiccough and I took the wrap.

Oddly I had two women both called Christine. In general terms this is, of course, not odd at all but when you have to introduce the readers to your listeners, saying Christine, Richard and Christine feels odd to me. Actually it was a pity Richard wasn’t a Christopher. I missed a trick there.

Today I was presenting the Haslemere papers (12-4 shift…which is actually 11-4 given I need to be an hour earlier than everyone else). There were a few funny things that happened.

When we read pieces that feature a website, we only read it out if it’s essential, the reasoning being that a partially or non-sighted person may not be interested in it. We prefer to use telephone numbers. However, with more websites being accessible to them, a few of our listeners voice activate their computers and surf quite easily. So, generally the rule is phone if there is one, website if that’s all. Generally, though, not both.

Well, clearly Richard doesn’t understand this because every time he had a contact, he’d read out the web address followed by a phone number. And every time he started up with his “www.” Christine would shake her head with disapproval, staring down at her next story. He couldn’t see her and just ploughed on. Before my next session, I’ll have to mention to my next lot of readers not to do it.

Anyway, it was quite funny. For me on the other side of the desk, it was like watching tennis. Richard starts the url, Christine shakes her head in a return volley.

The other thing is Richard doesn’t edit very well either. His pieces go on and on. I think I might mention this as well for future sessions. No-one wants to listen to screeds of numbers in a story about council profit and loss. A few maybe but not screeds. Actually, I’m not sure I know how many are in a screed. Must be quite a few though.

I managed to get a fantastic laugh at the end of my sport report this week (I’m amazed anyone actually listens!) when I read out a headline I’d saved for last. It was about a 10km bike ride. The guy who won was Patrick Bell and second place went to Bill Ferret. The headline read “Bell chased by Ferret”. Genius. Though I missed a great opportunity to sign off with “…but now it seems the ferret of time is about to chase us out of the studio, giving us just enough time to say goodbye. So it’s goodbye from Christine…” So, not quite comfortable yet, but one day I will be.

I’ll have a listen to the recording when it arrives and maybe (just maybe) I’ll post an excerpt.

I took the poodles to the park early this morning and I thought the Queens Bottom was looking particularly nice.

Carmen leads the way across the Queen's Bottom