309. Sitting at my piano…
“For Pete’s sake, look at the time!”
It’s been a leisurely start to the day (like every other day, in fact). I’m eating porridge while idly scrolling through my phone – I’ve fallen in love with one @HenryRothwell on Twitter who shares works of art: landscape paintings, largely, which are pretty much the only way of stepping outside right now. Like this one of Scarborough, painted by Carl Herman in 1930. Isn’t it wonderful?
306. Not going out…
It’s Sunday afternoon and we’re facing some tricksy decisions, ActorLaddie and I.
A.L. has been canvassed for his views on re-starting practices for – shall we say – his Interpretive Cross-stitch Group. And I have been asked where I am on this Sheep Scale:
An answer is required from ActorLaddie, so we mull. On the one hand, there has been a full risk-assessment of the school-hall used for practices and the Cross-Stitch committee are happy with it. There will be much gelling and the group will not share needles.
Continue reading →273. Well, since you ask me for a tale of obsessive behaviour…
“There’s a woman who comes to all ‘The Bridge’ related events dressed as Saga – leather trousers and everything. She even has the same car!” (Sofia Helin)
Now, I adore Detective Saga Noren as much as the next person and would love her to end the series living happily with Henrik and his ghost children – though I’m not holding my breath. But there’s fandom and then there’s weird. Reading interviews and blogs is OK; dressing in leather trousers and following the actor who plays her, borders on the obsessive.
272. A decade late to the party… with apologies to Dr Seuss
Gavin and Stace?!
Gavin and Stace?!
You’ve never seen Gavin and Stace?!
:-O
What’s with the disbelieving face?
I’ve never seen Gavin and Stace.
Yes, that’s the truth.
Yes, that’s for real.
Somehow the show just don’t appeal
(Doesn’t. Sorry.)
271 Not even for ready money…
It being our wedding anniversary – since you ask, thirty five years – well, quite: not even time off for good behaviour – anyway, in view of the day, we’d decided to use the voucher for afternoon tea given to me on my last birthday by our lovely friends, the Vestibules.
We’d booked to have the tea in one of the London hotels with a view to then doing something afterwards; a play or whatever. The hotel was on the edge of Hyde Park and the menu outside promised tea with sandwiches, cakes and ‘warm home-made scones’.
266. Yes, we have no..
“One Roast-Chicken-Dinner-For-One,” says Mrs Jones.
“One Roast Chicken-Dinner-For-One,” says Clark-from-Sainsbury’s-telephone-ordering-service.
“Eight bananas,” says Mrs Jones. “As green as possible.”
239. Um…
“The thing is, before I retired, I used to rush around on a Sunday trying to get everything done. But I’m finding now that I say ‘I’ll do this, that and the other tomorrow’ and do something else instead. Then whatever it was never gets done. Do you find that?”
221. With his head tucked underneath his arm…
“It’s Mrs Jellywoman, isn’t it?”
I am at the gym (thanks for all the helpful hints – so far, so good), face to face with a jolly woman, probably in her mid-sixties. Though she might be ninety-eight but really, really benefiting from regular work-outs. She does look familiar but I can’t quite place her. I’m vaguely thinking Jacob’s nan; Jacob, whose suggestion for a word containing the ‘ee’ sound was “weed – like what you smoke.” Maybe, maybe not…
218. It’s now or never…
I wasn’t put to the piano as a child. Refused the offer of lessons, apparently: as good a reason as any to invent time travel. But I’d really like to be able to play and, to quote Bro-In-Law – a man of infinite resource and sagacity – when someone asked him why he’d just taken up learning Gypsy Jazz Guitar, “I decided not to wait until I was younger.”
I did sort of start learning about twenty years ago but, what with teaching full-time and having two children, practice never seemed to reach the top of the To-Do list. So the enterprise was shelved, pending retirement. Which is Now.
208. Day 12: A night at the Opera…
Concert tickets bought on a whim – cheapest available – from a street vendor dressed in C18th garb (think Amadeus) – are never going to be the best seats in the house. Before setting off in our glad rags, however, I do check online to discover with some relief that the opera house does indeed exist, that we have paid the going price and, moreover, the concert is almost a sell- out. Continue reading →
The Jelly Chronicles 