This morning, for some reason, I remembered when I was still in digs and Colin’s car was stolen.
‘Did the car have any distinguishing features, sir?’
‘There is half a dead owl in the boot.’
‘May I ask you how you came to acquire half a dead owl, please, sir?’
‘I’m a naturalist.’
I bet you didn’t know that naturalists often drive around with dead animals or other wildlife in their boots.
Yesterday we were getting ready to go out shopping and on opening the flat front door found next door, which is usually unoccupied, the front door was open and an electric cable was trailing out of their flat, along the landing, and over to the lift! What was going on?
They were moving a recliner chair. ‘We’ve got an electric chair,’ they said.
‘That explains the funny smell,’ I commented.
It seems they could not get it in the lift, so connected it back to the power to see if they could adjust it in a way in which it would fit into the lift. They couldn’t, and ended up carrying it down all the stairs, one step at a time.
‘Oh, its an eject-a-Gran,’ I said having seen the thing.
Now I know how difficult it is to move these things I don’t think I will ever treat myself to one.
Do your neighbours have an electric chair? I am beginning to think the cleaner is right; some of the residents in this block are a little bit odd!
Yesterday was Elvis’ birthday. Had he lived to this date he would have been 75. Many of the surviving rock and roll artists I grew up listening to are now in their seventies or eighties. Most radio stations did something Elvis related yesterday, but the Dutch station NOS Radio 5 Nostalgia did it properly playing an entire Elvis concert (Hawaii) and then playing through the Elvis Top 75.
Most of us sixties teenagers have Elvis memories having grown up with his music. My favourite memory is September 1960. It was my first week at Grammar School and my first Sports afternoon. Our sports shirts had not arrived from the manufacturers yet and we sat on the gym floor in shorts and vests waiting to be taken out to the sports field. The prefects were enjoying the last few minutes of their lunch time playing records on the record player in the gym. The prefects had a record player! This school had everything. The record they were playing was ‘Its now or never’.
That was the only bit of school sports I ever enjoyed. It was downhill from then on.
I was delighted to see a community spirit exists in our new home, when we moved in; but wondered how deeply it was ingrained. So I am pleased to report that the able-bodied men are doing all the shopping and errands for the old ladies who are a bit wobbly on their pins, to save them having to go out in these dangerous conditions while there is so much snow and ice about. One cold snap is enough; we don’t want loads of broken bones as well.
We are so glad we moved; people help each other here, where we were before, if you fell people would just trample all over you.
I read in the local papers this week that the local authority is considering spending money to set up a Pensioners Play Ground. The idea is that they will have play equipment which will be beneficial to their health. Of course, it will only be of benefit if they actually use it.
I bet there will be no slide on health and safety grounds. Pity.
I have already had one encounter with a rep from Outward Bound For The Elderly. It looks like things may be about to get worse.
On Christmas morning I had to take some recycling out to the bins, and as I came back in through the side door, which is adjacent to flat 2, Santa came out of Flat 2. Ho Ho Ho, he went, Merry Christmas, and off he went. Mrs. No 2 told me it was her Son in Law and he was being Santa for The Lions, going round all the old peoples’ homes. Thats probably why he was here, I thought. Its all right, I said, I knew he wasn’t the real father Christmas. He wouldn’t be seen dead in trainers and no socks!
Back in June 1972 I moved down to Southend from the Midlands and on my first trip on the London to Tilbury railway found the estuary surroundings quite different from the scenery I was used to. Following the Thames estuary to Southend takes you over the Pitsea marshes, past Hadleigh Castle, through Benfleet and the Canvey Island, and on to Leigh on Sea with its attractive little fishing village. After that the rail line follows the river to Chalkwell. Just before you reached Chalkwell there was an old ruin of a wooden yacht called the Lady Savile.
I discovered the Lady Savile was the headquaters of the Essex Yacht Club and was in effect their club house.
Lady Savile rotted away and was duly replaced by another old boat, and now another – HMS Wilson.
It would appear that the tradition of using rather past-it vessels as their club house is well observed. For the East Anglia Daily Times reports that there were 112 people on board at the weekend having their Christmas Dinner when someone noticed that the gangplank had fallen off and they were trapped on the boat.
All 112 were ‘rescued’ from their Christmas Dinner by the emergency services who had to improvise somewhat.
I hate snow. It all started when the bullies at school thought it was great fun to push me face down in snowdrifts. It wasn’t. I regard snow as the worst aspect of nature. It leaves such a mess and only looks nice for about ten seconds. But the latest snow we had on Thursday was something else. It was the first time we have ever experienced, in memory, thunder and lightning and snow all together. Its when very cold and very warm air masses meet and the precipitation falls as snow instead of rain, and the Met Office forecast it correctly.
Please, not again. Once in a lifetime is enough.
I bought the Daily T today (to read up on the budget), and noticed something slightly unusual in the Court Circular.
Court Circular
December 9, 2009
Buckingham Palace
The Princess Royal, Patron, The Butler Trust, this morning visited Her Majesty’s Prison Wandsworth, Heathfield Road, Wandsworth, London SW18, and was received by Major General Peter Istead (Deputy Leiutenant of Greater London).
Oh, dear! What’s he in for?
On 28 February 1995 I was in San Francisco and I spent my last evening there going to the theatre; a play called The Plays The Thing which was being put on by the highly regarded company, the American Conservatoire Theatre at the theatre they were borrowing on Geary while their own theatre was being refurbished.
The performance was a near sell out and by the time I got into my seat it was packed out.
I quickly realised the majority of the audience, this being San Francisco, were probably gay. They were certainly impeccably dressed and groomed.
On the way in, as I entered the foyer I was stunned to see, for the first time I ever saw it, three large trestle tables, set out with hundreds and hundreds of little medicine glasses, all filled with water ready, set out for the evening’s patrons to use. I realised immediately that the theatre was providing these for those of their audience who were on AZT, one of the early treatments for HIV Aids. By the time I left the theatre on the way out – and the performance was brilliant – I noticed that there were hardly any medicine glasses remaining. They had almost all been used. The majority of the audience were on medication. I wonder what proportion of that audience has survived these fifteen years; and I wonder often whether in fact I was the only member of the audience that evening who was HIV negative.
It is nearly fifteen years since and this is now another approaching World Aids Day. In the UK, there are now three times as many people infected with the HIV virus than there were just ten years ago. Thats why I support World Aids Day – I saw something I had not expected, and cannot forget.
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