A Bad Start

Razorbill

Oh dear. Another day and another stack of projects piling up. Big news of the day is that we are having a man out to look at reasons for the non-functioning nature of our gas boiler. So far he has quoted us £99 for the call out and first hour, and arranged an appointment for 10.00 this morning. It’s 11.32 and he has not, so far, shown up or rung to tell us he is going to be late. This is not the 5 Star service promised by the feedback on his site.

This house hates me.

Puffins at Bempton

Last night we were cold. There’s a nasty cold wind about and we have no supplementary heating unless we turn the oven on. The gas fire is a mystery and we couldn’t even start to guess how to use it and we had nothing else apart from candles and hot water bottles.

I say “had” because I ordered a heater last night and it arrived this morning. I’m hoping we won’t need it, but I’d rather waste money on a heater we don’t need than freeze.

Anyway, even if the gas man turns up, there’s no guarantee he will be able to fix it so why take the risk?

Gannets

Apart from the gas, the bathroom light switch is giving trouble (we have already had two switches replaced) and the lights in the hallway are playing up. There are three different light switches to control them and sometimes hey don’t work. Julia is convinced that there is a loose wire and disaster is imminent. Julia, apart from her talent as a destroyer of electrical equipment (sometimes a single glance will incapacitate an appliance), could also double as Cassandra, if the Ancient Greeks ever need a replacement. Me, I think they have been wired so that they sometimes get out of phase. I’m prepared to be wrong but everything I’ve learned about the builder of this place indicates that shortcuts were taken and he probably didn’t ue the right switches to do the job. Watch this space.

Kittiwakes

Photos are from one of our Bempton trips.

Disjointed Notes

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I had a rejection yesterday afternoon. I’m currently at 5 and 3 with two more to go. The worst it can now be is 5 and 5, and 50% isn’t too bad. I’ve written enough on that subject recently so I will pass on to other subjects.

How about a Flying Saucer? We ate there several times when going to see Julia’s family as it used to be at the point where we turned off the A1. I was sure it was there for longer than the time frame reported in the article, but my mind plays tricks these days. I found an article about it while browsing the internet but this link is better.

I then went on to read a list of amusing rude names for British towns and villages. However, I’m trying to portray the image of a clean-living, serious-minded poet here, so I won’t provide the link as it’s not for the fainthearted and I wouldn’t want to upset anyone.

This one, on the other hand, is quite interesting. The trophy, which is even more interesting, cost £125 when it was made, which was a lot of money at the time.

We had steak for tea. Julia received two boxes of gifts for Mothering Sunday via Amazon, so I thought the least I could do was produce a decent meal. I did oven chips, as they always seem better than wedges, and I found, as usual, that onion rings at home are never as good as onion rings when eating out. We also had peas with garlic and mushrooms, so I kept the veg level reasonable. My vision didn’t extend as far as a fancy pudding so we had fresh fruit.

You need very finely chopped garlic when making the peas (a new recipe for me, if you can call it that), every time I peel garlic clove I remember an incident with a teacher. I was demonstrating on the farm and had trouble peeling one. He told me, in front of the whole class, it wasn’t even worth trying to peel cloves as it wasn’t possible. Several teachers did that sort of thing o me. I doubt they would have appreciated me walking into class and correcting them in front of their pupils.

I needed three more and prepared each of them in seconds. It’s normally that easy, and he looked like an idiot.

Whenever I peel a clove of garlic these days I think of him and regret the incident. I shouldn’t have continued to peel the cloves, but I needed them and couldn’t think of a tactful way to do it and let him save face. Having said that, much as I regret it, he brought it on himself. A true dilemma, and not really my fault, even though I do feel bad about it.

I’ll post some pizza photos from my great days as a baking instructor, such as they were.

Porridge, Poetry and Procrastination

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We have woken, eaten porridge, drunk excessive tea, watched birds on the feeders and I have answered comments and made comments. I have seen peregrines in Australia, Battersea power station in London and the tops of several Lake District hills. I have also exchanged comments with a proper poet and expressed an intention to steal from his blog to write a haibun. It is two weeks before submissions end for this month and I have several options open to me.

There are three reasonable journals closing at the end of the month, or I could wait a couple of months, give myself time to mull it over, and submit to another one. April is a slow month for submissions and a bit of a lottery as that journal asks for just one poem and uses a guest editor. I don’t want to waste it. Decisions . . .

People generally say that you should write a poem and let it mature. It does help at times, I admit. But sometimes I have written a poem, decided it was ready, sent it and had it accepted within a very short span. This is not the norm, but i has happened. Some, as you know, have gone out three or four times before being accepted. Some never make it. I could fill a book with the poems that never made it into print, but it would be a dreadful read. My bad poems are just dull and fall far short of McGonigal’s epic awfulness.

The other factor pushing me towards using the idea and sending the poem is that once I get this idea on paper I can have another idea. They don’t come along with the regularity of buses, or sausages, but it does seem easier to have another idea once one is safely down on paper. I used to be terrible at his, saving ideas for the right moment, afraid that I might squander them on unworthy poems, and, eventually over-thinking and strangling them.

Anyway, can’t sit about chatting about poetry all day, I have to go and write some. I also have to make sandwiches for noon, as Julia needs to get off to the tea room.

11.17 – need a title, photos and tags then I can get some writing done and start making tomato sandwiches.

Porridge for breakfast then tomato sandwiches. You can see why my writing tends to be dull rather than Bacchanalian, can’t you?

Finally, a photograph that appeals to my fondness for history and rhubarb – old-fashioned terracotta rhubarb forcers.

All pictures from the RHS Gardens at Harlow Carr in March 2019.

11.35 – must get on with sandwiches. (I’m not slowing down, I merely diverted to reading a special off er on extra large shirts. It’s procrastination rather than writer’s block that holds me back.

Breakfast Thoughts

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Saturday morning, just after 8am and I am starving. It is a dilemma. Julia is having a lie in so if I start making breakfast I will probably disturb her with all the clattering in the kitchen. I will also be selecting a time for her to wake up, which is not really the point of a lie in. The whole concept really demands that you are allowed to wake when you want and ease yourself out from under the covers at a time you feel is suitable.

On the other hand, someone making breakfast for you is always a bonus.

As a compromise, although I’m hungry enough for a cooked breakfast, I may settle for a sensible, and quiet, meal of cereal and fruit.

It’s partly about consideration, but also partly about self-preservation. After 37 years I have learned not only to be sensitive to my wife’s welfare, but to wake her gently. She has a tendency to imitate the fabled bear with a sore head when woken suddenly, as I have found to my cost more than once.

Healthy Breakfast

No, I’m still feeling too peckish for cereal. Looks like I’m going to go for a cooked breakfast and risk the consequences, though a few harsh words are hardly a deterrent when compared to the more likely scenario of a heart attack. I just looked up heart attack and found myself smiling at the risk factors, which are very close to being a biography in my case. I note that one of the factors, which I had never seen before, is psoriatic arthritis, which is one of the two sorts I have.

I was half-expecting to read that using a keyboard with a missing “t” was a factor. It doesn’t seem to be on the list but “hostility” does, and I confess to feeling fairly hostile towards my keyboard a the moment.

As a finale, I managed to publish before the photos and title, so I can now mention “senior moment” too.

A Tale of Two Results

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My Orange Parker Pen

I have just had another poem accepted, a haiku. It is 8 words long and scarcely seems long enough to be a poem but i is, and you wouldn’t believe how hard they are to write. I don’t normally have haiku accepted, and I sometimes have them mentioned as the reason for rejecting haibun, so I am quite pleased with this. Perhaps I’m starting to get the hang of this, though I’ve thought that before and been wrong.

A little later, I had a rejection. My poetry does not “fit the shape of the issue”. All sorts of replies spring to mind. I could offer to write round poems perhaps . . .

In the end, I won’t. There’s no real etiquette for thanking someone for turning down your poetry for years on end that doesn’t risk being seen as sarcastic. Anyway, rejection rarely bothers me these days and in this case I sent my submissions expecting a rejection so it’s attracting my attention only because I need something to write about. Submitting to this particular periodical is actually more like an inoculation than a submission: I do it to ensure I keep my level of immunity topped up.

I have a submission window closing on the 15th, which is quite soon. It’s for haiku and I am going to polish up the rejects from this month and send them out again. Obviously, looking at them a second time will reveal a few with faults, but over half, maybe with the odd tweak, will be going out again. As I’ve said before, it’s surprising how many make it after two or three attempts.

Julia went to Nottingham by train earlier this week and passed this sign on he way. It commemorates Mallard’s world speed record.

Ten Minutes

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Ten minutes? That’s cutting it fine even by my standards.

Balfour Declaration Medal 1967 (Obverse) It is a big medallion – 59mm in diameter.

Much of today’s writing was about a bronze medal commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration (1917). It’s often taken as an important step in the founding of the modern state of Israel.

Of course, by another interpretation, it’s also one of the steps in producing the events we now see in Gaza and the Middle East.

Balfour Declaration Medal 1967 (Reverse)

The trick in writing an article about this (it was part of the material in my postponed presentation “The Dark Side of the Medal”) is not in writing about the ramifications, or the political deals that were done, but in writing about it in a suitably neutral tone so nobody is offended by what I say.

My subject is not the rights and wrongs of Middle Eastern politics, but the man who designed the medal, the design and the fact that it is made in tombac. In numismatics we call a lot of medallions “bronze” when they aren’t. It’s a natural progression – gold, silver, bronze. Bronze is a mixture of copper and tin. Tombac is a mixture of copper and zinc. It’s cheaper, it can be made to look like bronze, or even gold, depending on the mix, but it is actually a type of brass.

The Balfour Declaration – well-meaning but, in hindsight, flawed

The campaign stars of the Second World War were made from tombac, as were some Canadian wartime coins.

Designer’s name

The designer of the Balfour medal is Paul Vincze, (1907– 94) a Jewish-Hungarian sculptor who moved to the UK in 1938 to avoid Nazi persecution. He had a distinctive style and is probably best known for his series of 1964 Shakespeare medallions celebrating the 400th anniversary of the playwright’s birth. He also designed coins for Ghana, Guinea, Libya, Malawi and Nigeria.

Shakespeare Medallion by Paul Vincze

Yes, I cheated. I published then went back to add the photos as I got to 11.59 and only 230 words.

The Dull Daily Post

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Mute Swan Carsington Water

After last night’s close shave (I pressed the button with a minute to spare) I thought I’d write the daily post in plenty of time. It’s 8.45, I’ve scuffled through a bit of poetry in my files and established tha I have about 16 poems that are either finished or close to being finished. That should do me for this month as I need between six and nine.

Some of them have been “close to being finished” for several months now, as it’s quite a general category.

Apart from that, looking a my emails (nothing of interest) and answering three comments, there is little to report. I’m just wondering what to do for breakfast, then I’m going to get ready for the doctor and, after that is over, I will take Julia on an expedition to find someone to alter her wedding suit.

It’s nice to get out and about and be useful, but less satisfactory to be used as a taxi service.

That’s the trouble with early blogging. I’ve done nothing to report. If I leave it late, however, I’ve forgotten most of the events of the day, and sometimes, as last night, run out of time.

World events continue to be farcical when viewed from afar. However, I feel guilty for saying that, as I’m sure they are less funny close up.

I’m still not clear why countries can’t just leave each other alone. You don’t need to agree with your neighbour, but you don’t need to invade it either.

Mute Swan

Sand and Broken Needles

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Suddenly I have 14 minutes till midnight. It doesn’t really matter because I can get back on course, but it always seems better if I can manage one a day. There may be no photos.

Yesterday I forgot to tell you that we had Sahara dust on the car. It’s nice to know we are part of a worldwide weather phenomenon. By today it had washed off.

It was another early morning as I am back driving and took Julia to wood turning. It took us ten minutes to get there, then I had to join the queue of traffic to get back. That took half an hour. It’s road design and tidal flow. I have to pass the big school complex on the way back, and quite a few people are also going to work a the enterprise park next to us. It annoys me as there is no real alternative. There are alternatives, but one is often gridlocked and the other involves driving ten miles out of my way. Pleasanter, but pointless.

She returned bearing a nice turned pen stand to go with the pen she did for Number One Son’s birthday, and a piece of wood that might make an unseasonal snowman or a strangely shaped vase. Some times the tools do their own thing . . .

I was more productive today and am finally regaining control over my life, which has been a sorry affair for the first two months of the year, with constant infections.

I also forgot to tell you I had a broken injector pen at the weekend. I pushed it, it clicked, the needle seemed to go home, then nothing . . . (You are supposed to here a return click when it finishes). So I pushed it again. It was quite painful and felt a little jagged, though I think that was just imagination. Then it clicked to signal it had finished, which was a relief.

Late Night Post and Consequences

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Two Admiral Vernon Medallions – the War of Jenkins’ Ear

After posting last night I went on to work into the early hours doing internet research on a medallion I am writing up for the Numismatic Society. It took about three hours (time flies when you are engrossed) and I ended up with several pages of notes and a lot of other information which I left floating around in my head.

I had to be up reasonably early in the morning to get ready for going to he doctor so only had four and a half hours sleep. I can function on that. In fact I did for many years. These days, being less enthused and energetic, I tend to fall asleep in front of TV so my “four hours” tend to spread by a good two or three hours as the day goes on. That’s what happened today.

Flying Horse of Gansu medallion – obverse

I dropped off for an hour in the morning in a break from typing and I slept for a couple of hours this evening, missing Pointless. During Richard Osman’s House of Games I was definitely not up to speed and after Mastermind, was left feeling slow. I knew the answers but I couldn’t dig them out quickly enough.

At the moment, I am only halfway through the article, have done very little poetry and didn’t bake the cheese scones I was thinking about. With a full night of sleep I would have managed them all.

Just when I thought I’d corrected my bad sleep habits they sneak back . . .

Shakespeare Medallion by Paul Vincze

It’s difficult to say whether I would have achieved more if I’d gone to bed at the proper time last night, as I would probably have drifted off course anyway. Though I might have been sharper at the quizzes.

Tomorrow is another earlyish start as I am now well enough to start taking Julia to wood turning. While I’ve been ill she has been going by bus.

What I Ate On Sunday

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23.19

Almost too late to post. Better be quick.

Healthy Breakfast

Breakfast was weetabix style cereal (TESCO) own brand is a lot cheaper and, I imagine, no less good for me). We had blueberries and bananas on it, which are both, I admit, out of season and have to be shipped in. Then we had toast and marmalade. It’s Sunday – so we pushed the boat out.

Lunch was yellow split pea soup (which included sweet potato, carrot, celery, leeks and onions) it was OK. We had a Stilton cheese sandwich with mango chutney too. One part good, one part bad.

On her return from the tearoom Julia brought some surplus Victoria sponge. It was borderline dry (which was why they gave it away) but a nice treat.

Carrot & Ginger Soup

For tea we had slightly tasteless steak pies from freezer (this week is a week for emptying the freezer), baked potatoes, carrots, parsnips and leeks with gravy.

For dessert I had quite a lot of medication, followed by half a packet of small Easter eggs.

After years of reading what Derrick had to eat, I expected my list would be quite interesting, but it wasn’t. It’s either mundane, slightly faulty or (like the Stilton and mango chutney sandwich) far too decadent and fat-filled to admit to. They Stilton is currently perfectly ripe.

Before batching – Date and Stilton Scones. I must try them again.

It was nice to get back to being able to cook (you can always ell when I am on he mend, because I start cooking again. When I’m ill I become lethargic, floppy and lazy and let Julia do all the work.

As I checked emails before starting to write, I see I have had a tanka accepted. That makes it a good day.

23.31

Twelve minutes for 280 words – not bad.

23.36

Tags and photos done.

Just need a title . . .

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Life after the Care Farm