Monthly Archives: October 2019

The Geese Take Flight

It was a generally average Saturday. Nippy enough to tell you it was autumn but not cold enough for a coat. Moderate amount of activity in the shop and time enough to increase my knowledge of eBay. I have decided I need to become a better eBay user, both for my work and for myself. I really can’t put it off much longer as I need to reduce my collection and generate some cash.

The photographs are more from the visit to the gardens earlier in the week. There is a threat of frost this weekend and I thought I’d get a few final shots of the nasturtiums before the frost flattens them. The first frost and the devastated nasturtiums is, for me, the saddest sight of the year.

The header picture shows a skein of geese flying south. During the summer they fly in to the Trent every morning, where they gather on the river to feed and mug passers-by. AS winter moves on, they start flying away instead. It can be tricky taking a picture of geese in the sky with just a scratched screen for a viewing aid. I just pointed the camera at the honking and pressed the button every time the green square indicated I was focussed on something. It seemed to work.

Nasturtiums Wilford Mencap Gardens

I will close now as I need to get on with a few jobs.

CT17, IP1 and TN21

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Those are the final three from the list.

CT is Canterbury, but CT 17 covers part of Dover. It’s famous for its White Cliffs, which have never had bluebirds over them, despite what the song says. It’s also famous for its Roman Lighthouse , the tallest surviving Roman structure in Britain, and for the only Roman wall painting outside Italy.

I’ll keep it fairly general as I’m not really sure how much of Dover this code covers.

I used to stay in a Bed & Breakfast in Dover Docks when I reared chickens in the South East. The cheapest rooms were downstairs in the cellar, really just a sort of cell with no windows. It was cheap and as I sleep with my eyes closed the surroundings didn’t really matter. The breakfast was large and the proprietor was efficient and lacking in all false bonhomie. And all genuine bonhomie too, if I’m honest. I’m not much of a one for small talk when I’m stoking up at breakfast so that suited me too.

IP1, as you might guess from the previous post, is in Ipswich.

It’s a nice town, the 42nd largest built up area in England and Wales in 2011. It has also won awards for being friendly, clean and good to work in.

There’s much more, but again, I’m not sure how much is actually in IP1.

Finally – TN21. That’s back to Kent – Tonbridge. It includes Royal Tunbridge Wells. This is slightly confusing in normal speech – Tunbridge and Tonbridge.

TN21 includes the wonderfully named village Cross in Hand. This is actually in East Sussex. Such are the vagaries of the postcode system. It has a pub called The Cross in Hand.

The first record of the village is under the name of Cruce Manus in 1547. It’s supposedly Latin for Cross in Hand but doesn’t seem quite right – no “in” for a start. This comes from a legend that Crusader used to muster here before trekking off to the desert to die. They were not a particularly successful set of wars for us.

The Trip to Jerusalem in Nottingham was supposedly named for the same reason. I tend to grow cynical once the Crusaders are mentioned. Apart from Nottingham Crusaders – an old Nottingham Rugby League Club.

Michaelmas Daisies – Wilford Mencap Gardens

Todays pictures are dew soaked Michaelmas daisies from the gardens when I dropped Julia off. We’re a few weeks after Michaelmas, but they are still going strong.

An even quicker post

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Twenty one minutes.

We went out today, did some errands, went to see Dad, ate pasties, had loads of great photo opportunities (autumn leaves, steelwork, cranes and a concrete pump, red kites and a great sunset) and really regretted leaving the camera at home. It’s almost a universal law that the day you leave the camera at home you get the best photo ops.

That’s why I’m going to throw yet another random photo into the post.

I won two games of dominoes this afternoon. My Dad also won two and he’s 90 and more than slightly confused. He spent a lot of his life being competitive and skilful with numbers and these seem to be two key values that he has retained despite the challenges. It sets my two victories in perspective, because I really was trying.

Julia won two games too, despite not playing to win and my sister won one game despite actively trying to lose. All in all I have to face the possibility I’m not very good at dominoes.

I enjoyed my relaxed night so much last night that I tried it again. Hence the quick post. Wednesday nights have been TV nights recently because it’s The Apprentice, followed by Taskmaster. We’ve started watching The Circle too, so now we’ll have to watch a repeat of Taskmaster later in the week.

I’m not particularly proud of my TV viewing, but it could have been worse. Julia has spent all night swearing at an origami book and throwing screwed up paper on the floor. I take it that the paper folding is not going well.

She’s generally very good at origami, but new additions to her repertoire are often a bit of a struggle. I have learnt several new words from her failed attempts…

1994 22 carat gold 50p

Gold 50p 1994 D-Day

Photos are the Gold 50p coin we had a few weeks ago – it commemorates the 50th Anniversary of D-Day. It’s strange we are now celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the 50p coin. How fast does time go?

Just a Quick Post

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Tonight I decided that I’d be a good husband for once. Not that good, not sensitive or empathetic, or even generous, but I greeted her with a peck on the cheek, a cup of tea and a bubbling stew.

She was, to be honest, a little nonplussed. I may, over the years, have deviated a bit from the romantic ideal of husbandry. As Julia has pointed out, when she took me for better or worse, richer for poorer and in sickness and in health, she had been thinking of them as a list of options rather than a blueprint for the future.

I’ve been sitting by the TV being sociable this evening, though feeling a bit twitchy at times when I’ve wanted the inetrnet to look something up.

However, it’s character forming when you don’t get what you want, so it’s done me good tonight.

Julia muttered something about forming a lot of character over the last thirty years.

At that point I made her a nice milky coffee and sneaked off to blog.

The pictures are Irish 50 p pieces – they only had the two designs – normal and the 1988 commemorative for the Dublin millennium. They didn’t do the small size 50p because they went to the Euro instead. And they don’t have a rash of cheap and nasty commemoratives like us because they have some vestige of self-respect.

They have nothing to do with me being a good husband but it’s the 50th anniversary of the 50p coin and these were the easiest pictures to access.

Irish 50p – Woodcock

Irish 50p – 1988 Dublin

Irish 50p – the other side

There’s nowt so strange as folk…

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I once bought a collection of 107 owls. They were no bigger than two inches tall, with some being under an inch, and none were by recognised potters. Most of them had been sourced from gift shops or charity shops and as a collection they were a pleasant, if slightly eccentric, thing to look at.

Owls are nice. If it had been a collection of vultures I might have felt slightly different about it.

I tell you this to set the scene relating to another collection we bought recently. It consisted of about ten pound of mint condition decimal copper with a few five and ten pence coins.

Most of them were carefully laid out in plastic bags before being rolled up and taped into ribbons of coins, but a substantial number were individually wrapped. Some were wrapped like sweets but the majority were taped into individual flat packets. Cutting the pieces of plastic from a larger bag must have been laborious, but the effort of wrapping them was Herculean.

A strangely presented collection

And no, we don’t know why he had done it like that. I just assume that he was old and had time on his hands. In those circumstances some of us blog, others wrap coins tightly in bits of surplus plastic and cellophane. Goodness knows what I will be doing in a few years time.

People think that they are protecting the coin but in fact, the chemicals that make up plastic contain a lot off sulphur, which discolours coins. Over the years they have developed plastics that do less damage to coins. AS you can see from the colours of some of these coins, these weren’t wrapped in low sulphur plastic.

Anyway, my job was to remove all the wrappings.

I’ve had more exciting jobs, but I still paid whether I’m excited or not.

Decimal 1/2 p coins – not worth much in 1971 and worth less now

More of the Same Old Drivel…

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I’m sure I wrote half a post earlier on today, though I can’t recall what it was about or why I didn’t finish. This senior moment stuff is really starting to take hold.

Sunday, as usual is a turmoil of competing strands, including sleeping, eating, napping and watching excessive amounts of Diagnosis Murder. And I’d meant to do so much…

Not that it’s so different from every other day of my life. I always mean to do so much.

I started by deciding not to get up even though I was fully awake at 7am. At 8.30 I decided to get up in “ten minutes” and at 10.30 Julia shouted upstairs that if I didn’t get up my breakfast would go cold.

Breakfast!

It turned out to be a lie: it was already cold. She had foolishly taken my “ten minutes” claim at face value. You’d have though she’d have learned after 30 years…

It serves me right for being cuddly, laid back and quirky, I suppose. The exact words that were used were fat, lazy and unreliable, but I know she doesn’t mean it. Which reminds me, I must look at the embroidery on the wall to check out the exact date of my Wedding Anniversary. It’s at the end of the month and, with it being the 30th anniversary, I’d better get it right. She cuts me a bit of slack for the minor ones, but I’m supposed to be making a fuss of this one.

It’s five years ago since I was last expected to remember so it’s not too onerous.

I just had a quick look at some anniversary gifts, like this engraved glass plaque, because nothing says “I Love You” like something that looks like it comes from a promotional gifts catalogue. Even I can see this would not be a good choice for a main gift, though I might chance it as a secondary gift, with the added bonus that I could have the date engraved on it.

I do like this. Possibly not as a wedding anniversary gift though. Too aerodynamic.

Then I searched for pearl jewellery.

I’m going for a lie down now, as my bank balance is feeling faint.

Seal pup – Donna Nook, Lincolnshire

Soon be that time of year again. A cold day on the coast watching seals.

Dreams and Confessions

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I woke early this morning. You can probably tell that from the fact I was able to post before going to work. I woke around 4.30 after having a bad dream. I can’t tell you what it was about but it featured being trapped in tunnels and saying more risks having unwelcome Freudian interpretations forced on me.

After a trip to the bathroom went back to sleep until 5.30 when I awoke convinced that the police were about to tow my camper van away because I’d obstructed someone’s driveway by parking it round the corner from the house. This was very vivid and it was a few seconds before I realised that I didn’t have a camper van and didn’t have a corner to park anything round.

The subconscious is a weird and wonderful thing. Mainly, in my case, weird. It’s not many years since I dreamed I was a spinning top on a fairground ride and woke up to find I was in mid-air, having spun myself out of bed. To be fair, I wasn’t in mid-air for long as gravity did its part rapidly and efficiently.

Julia said: “Have you broken anything?”

I assured her I was OK.

“I meant the bedside table. I knew you’d bounce.”

And they say romance is dead…

Then there was the time I woke up screaming because the giant rat was eating my leg, only to find the “jaws” were my own hands grasping my leg.

Anyway, I popped into wakefulness again at 7.01, which is my normal weekday time (I normally allow myself to lie in until 8.00 on Saturday as I don’t have to run Julia to work). It seemed pointless to go back to sleep so I got up, had the last of the Chinese takeaway for breakfast, blogged, made my sandwiches (yes, cheese again), went to the local shop, did some long-term financial planning (or bought a lottery ticket if you prefer the unvarnished version) and turned up at work just in time to get the last parking space. For some reason everyone thinks they can park in front of the shop on Saturday, even though they are nothing to do with us.

We had quite a crowd in at one time and succeeded in getting a customer to join the Numismatic Society. We had nine customers and three staff in at one time. In the old shop you were uncomfortably full if you had three customers and if you had four you had to synchronise your breathing.

By four I was glad to escape and go shopping with Julia. I say “go shopping” but we have developed a routine that features us having a toasted teacake and a mug of tea before she goes round the shop while I sit and read the paper. It suits me because I’m a lazy male chauvinist pig and it suits her because she hasn’t got someone trailing round behind her complaining about prices.

The rot started a few years ago when I found myself nodding and saying “Yes dear.” when I wasn’t actually listening. I’d always said I wouldn’t do that, but once it started, the rest seemed to follow naturally.

That, I think, is enough for now. To continue risks me getting a flea in my ear if either Julia or my sister read this. Like Bertie Wooster, I have a set of female relatives who can be fearsome when annoyed.

Nearly there!

The pictures show one of the answers to my question from yesterday – where does all the time go?

An Interesting King

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The coin is a 1 Fils of King Ghazi I of Iraq. Dated 1938 it is uncirculated and still has traces of its original lustre.

King Ghazi was king for only six years but he seems to have packed a lot in – wanting to annexe Kuwait, conducting an affair with a palace servant, having suspected Nazi sympathies and, finally, dying in a car crash which may have been organised by his Prime Minister.

All this sounds very familiar.

Fils is singular, though some coin dealers write 1 Fil. The plural is fulus but in the west we stick to using fils. Unfortunately it’s also French for “son” so you need to be quite precise in your search terms. In French it’s both singular and plural.

The coin is available on eBay for £25, though lower grades are available much cheaper. That’s a good thing about coin collecting – it encompasses all budgets. You can buy some very interesting coins for a pound or two if condition isn’t important. We did that yesterday, selling a coin of Louis XVI like this one, from 1792, to a young collector. It was very worn, but it was £1 and think of all that history!

Where does all the time go?

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Last night I came home, did the washing up I’d left to mature for a couple of days and prepared the evening meal. We had some leftover chicken, wrinkly carrots, bendy parsnips, over the hill mushrooms, softening onions and sprouting garlic. I then threw in some stock cubes, pearl barley and water.

I’m thinking of marketing a line of cookware with the motto “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here” featured on the logo.

With hindsight more water or less barley may have been better. And less cooking. I lost track of time and it ended up with a couple of hours on a very low heat. The result was a pearl barley risotto. I liked it, though I was surprised. Julia was equally surprised, and not quite so keen. She doesn’t always appreciate my deviations from the culinary norm, or the fact I hate wasting vegetables.

I watched TV with Julia, replied to comments on the blog, wrote 1,100 words in two parts, did the washing up again and made the sandwiches for today.

Then I fell asleep.

It really doesn’t sound like a lot of work when you consider it took the best part of eight hours. There was a slight nap involved (about thirty minutes – that’s all) and the TV probably took up two hours, so I suppose it becomes a bit more understandable.

Then there was today, which just seemed to fade away. I got Julia to work for 8.30, was at the shop for 9.00, bid on some ebay items by 9.30 and had several parcels packed by 10.00. After that it all became a blur and suddenly it was the end of another week – just one more day to go until Sunday.

Where do the days go, and the evenings and the weeks? In fact, where did this year go? Or my life, come to think about it. If the next twenty years go as fast as the last twenty I really don’t have time for naps.

Now I’m off to find photos for this post and to prepare myself for more postcode facts.

The picture is part of my collection that I found recently after some years in a dusty box – it’s a fund-raising flag used by the Foresters to raise money for their regimental war memorial at Crich.

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Life after the Care Farm