2008 — 6 November: pension day, thank goodness!
Tonight's picture takes us back to Christmas 1986. (I can tell by the battered old carpet, the lack of certain items of furniture, the fact that we were still using the back of the living room as a dining room, the fact that Christa was wearing the blue pullover I had worn back in 1975, and the giant model spider stuck to the wall as part of my long-running attempt at self-therapy to deal with my fear of the horrible creatures without passing it on to Junior):
Christa and Peter in the living room, Xmas 1986
On the shelves behind and above them, by the way, safely beyond the 1986 grasp of sticky little fingers, are an antique glass decanter and sole surviving glass from a German Art Deco set, my little collection of far too expensive "Folio Society" editions [including Tolkien, of course, and the tales of Sheherazade], Christa's cherished doll, a Maltese glass vase that was an early gift of mine to her from Caley's in Windsor, the clock from her father's desk, a couple of Joseph Heller first edition hardbacks, and the entire "Time-Life" World's Wild Places series. Wonder how many of those still exist? The map, by the way, is the geological survey of the UK. Christa was an extremely keen geography student.
The glass lampshade was as yet unshattered by my attempts to master that disk-spinning-on-two-strings game whose name has obviously been long repressed.
Happy days. Let's hope the weather brightens up a bit to allow a walk later. G'night.
Back (not) with a bang... dept.
No, not (yet) from a walk, but from the not entirely comforting arms of Morpheus. There seems to be some odd stuff bubbling away in my subconscious. Still, a new day is a new day, damp or otherwise. It's 09:25 and breakfast is going in, a lunch will be packed, and then it's off for the open road. Assuming I can negotiate the road works for which a sign showing a man with an umbrella is currently outside on "my" bit of pavement. Report to follow.
Somewhat later... dept.
A pleasant stroll, not sunny, but no rain either, mostly along quiet country roads near Froxfield. It's very good to get out into the fresh air and chatter fairly aimlessly in the way that good friends do. Suddenly it's 17:21 and I'm listening to pontifications about the effect of the cut in interest rates. I gather they have just been slashed to the 3% that they apparently stood at in 1954. (A bit before I took any interest in the topic.) I suppose there's a certain irony in rates being low when I'm now a saver (as it were) having been high all the time I was a borrower during my working life, with a mortgage.
Well, I've done my little bit for the economy this month: I've just ordered a (delicious, I hope) boxed set of Jake Thackray CDs "Jake in a Box: the EMI Recordings 1967-1976" and a book describing itself as "QI: Advanced Banter" — I browsed this recently and it made me laugh out loud, which is always a Good Thing. (As a matter of fact, last night's edition of Mock the Week also made me laugh out loud, which was nice. I fear Little Dorrit didn't have the same effect.)
I've also exchanged calls with the aunt who's the executor for my recently-deceased other aunt's estate which, in turn, made it necessary to call dear Mama. Now I shall get a chance to do some funner stuff, I hope, for the rest of the evening including, but not limited to, another little slab of "Dorrit". And some calories, of course. "Soon, please" says the tum.
Unbelievable... dept.
Our delightful Home Secretary (whose sole redeeming feature in my book is that she's not Jack Straw) apparently thinks that my fellow citizens "cannot wait to get their hands on" the guvmint's proposed ID cards. I think they should read the information here (assuming they can) before leaping so eagerly into this particular minefield.
I would have quoted the link to the BBC page containing this story, but my access to the BBC has suddenly ceased. Spooky, isn't it? But I'm glad (at 19:57) to discover it's not just me:
