Back to the Draining-Board…

Ah holidays! I remember them

Sarada Gray

I’ve left you for far too long. I was only going to take a week or two off, but then – you know how it is – you get into holiday mode and you say to yourself, ‘just a few more days’ and days turn into weeks and before you know it September is looming, and torrential rain is pouring down, determined to spoil what remains of the summer holidays – and I realise it’s been two entire months since I last posted.

To be fair I was utterly exhausted at the end of June. I’d been working hard and needed a holiday – and then Artbeat just about finished me off. I got a heavy cold on the last day and had to cry off going to a panel event on ‘writers talking about writing’. So I was only too happy to be going away the following Saturday. The…

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No Hand Signals

Another one from 2 years ago

Sarada Gray

Back in the day learning hand signals used to be part of the driving test, presumably in case your electrics went on the blink.  From memory waving an arm up and down meant ‘I am slowing to a halt’, rotating a hand in one direction meant – oh, I can’t remember because I never used them; but so prevalent were they that disabled drivers used to put a notice on the car boot saying ‘No Hand Signals.’

Nowadays, alongside these official signs have evolved a set of informal but generally understood hand signals.  First, the thanks signal for when someone lets you out of a side road or allows you to pass an obstacle.  This consists of a raised palm which, in order to be sure the other driver has seen it, should be left in place for at least a couple of seconds.  (This presumably would not be encouraged…

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Many Quake, but Few are Quoken…

Another goldie from 2017 when I was at Quaker Yearly Meeting Gathering. This should have happened again this year…

Sarada Gray

My absence from the blogosphere for the last week or so can be explained by this: I have been at a Gathering.  Or perhaps it was a Meeting.  Was it a meeting of minds?  Or a gathering of bodies?  Or both?  Where was it?  Who was it?  What was it?  All questions will be answered, though only in the Quaker way.  This is much like the economists’ way: ie if you ask three Quakers a question you will get four different answers.

Quakers.  As Romeo might have cried, wherefore are ye Quakers?  The answer lies in history, in an insult hurled at Friends who, inspired to speak, might quake in body or voice.  In true Friends’ fashion they took the insult and turned it into a name for themselves.  (I don’t know, there are so many words we can’t use any more: queer, Quaker…)

A week is a long…

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Marching in Wales

Another one from 2017 and a touch of serendipity: yesterday I came across my copy of ‘On The Black Hill’ which I’d bought around that time

Sarada Gray

Regular readers will remember from last autumn such gems on this blog as the fuel and wood situation, the dog situation and the bread situation.  These situations have been revisited, revised and reorganised in my second – nay, third – trip to the borderlands where Monmouthshire and Herefordshire kiss – or perhaps spit at each other – over a river.

I’m an old hand at the Welsh Marches now:  I know the roads and the villages, I know the castles and the churches; I know the pubs and the people.  Most of all I know the dogs – but alas! the resident dogs have the memory of a goldfish and in spite of the fact that I walked, fed and entertained them for several weeks, they did not remember me.  But the dogs are the least of it: for now we have the geese situation, the duck situation, the turkey…

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Standing Up For Sitcom: The Inaugural Ronnie Barker Comedy Lecture

Another golden oldie from 2017

Sarada Gray

The phrase ‘comedy lecture’ sounds like a bit of an oxymoron but when you name it after Ronnie Barker and have it delivered by Ben Elton, how can anyone resist?  It’s oxymoronically appropriate too, as Ben Elton and Ronnie B did not get off to the best start.  They met at a BBC Light Entertainment dinner some time in the ’80’s, when the Two Ronnies were at the height of their fame.  Ronnie C and Ronnie B held, as it were, separate orbits; Ronnie C’s being relaxed and full of laughter and Ronnie B’s being full of intent, nodding BBC executives listening to the great man pronounce.  Excellent comic actor (and writer) he may have been; self-deprecating he undoubtedly was, but it seems Ronnie Barker could be a tad pompous.  Anyway, as Ben Elton, Stephen Fry and Rowan Atkinson hovered at his shoulder like the three wise monkeys, Ronnie swivelled…

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WordPress Owners: Please Read

My sentiments too. If it ain’t broke then don’t fix it

beetleypete

If anyone who reads this is not happy with the new Block Editor, if you don’t want to use it, wish it had never happened, and quite literally hate the thing, then please reblog this post, share it constantly on social media, and let’s see if we can get WordPress to take notice of us.

Dear WordPress, you have started to force the Block Editor on your blogging community. You must have your reasons for this, and I supect they are commerical ones. After all, you have to make a profit, and you continue to provide a basic blogging platform free of charge to the majority of your bloggers.

However.

You will also be aware that a significant percentage of your loyal bloggers absolutelyHATEthis new Block Editor. It is not intuitive, and we can see no good reason for it having to be forced on us.

It is…

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I’ll Have an Eight-Mile Walk With a Side Order of Getting Lost When I’m Exhausted Please

Blimey, I did a lot of walking in 2018

Sarada Gray

I wasn’t planning to go too far today.  I’ll just start off from Mountsorrel and see where I get to, I thought.  Well I walked and I saw where I got to and lo! it was Watermead Park.  And I saw that it was good.  I was quite tired by the time I’d walked a bit in the park and seen several expanses of water, lots of geese and a couple of herons. 

Watermead Park is an area of low-lying land which is now dedicated to leisure and pleasure: there are hundreds of walks, a lake which you can sail on, loads of cycling routes and hides for bird-watching.  There are also picnic tables, one of which I chose to have my lunch at.  It had a white object left on it and I approached with caution lest it be something nasty but it turned out to be a…

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Le Shewee Est Arrive!

I can actually use this now though I have yet to try it outdoors

Sarada Gray

Yes, it’s here; the little piece of equipment that transforms any woman into a fully-functioning, go-anywhere, freewheeling sort of gal.  All you need is the cover of some bushes and you can pee standing up!  It arrived this morning and I tried it out – it worked brilliantly!  No drips, no mess, no spillage, just fully-directable stream-of- stream-of- well, not exactly consciousness but you know what I mean.  Many times both recently and in the past I have had to examine bushes to see if they provide not only cover but also nettle-free areas in which to squat; and even if I find such an area it’s a hell of a performance peeing without getting any on your shorts and underwear.  But now I can say goodbye to all that (as Robert Graves once said) and pee standing up.  It is a joy.

It’s a lovely shade of pink, just…

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Watermead to Abbey Park

Another one from 2018

Sarada Gray

A gentler walk today, intending to be around 6 miles but working out at nearly 8.  Once again I got lost on the way back: once again I failed to understand how this could have happened.  Either I took another path which had vanished by the time I came back, or I’d failed to notice a long row of houses and a large pub.  Now call me unobservant if you will, but if there’s one thing I notice it’s pubs.  Because I like pubs.  I’m interested in pubs.  I like to take a look at them and see what sort of pub they are; whether they’re likely to do good beer and have a good atmosphere and so on.  And it turned out that, my phone having died and the map being rather too small-scale to provide the requisite detail, I entered said pub and asked if they knew where…

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Abbey Park to King’s Mill Lock: 9.4 Miles

From two years ago

Sarada Gray

Today was supposed to be an easier day; it didn’t turn out that way.  The first section was fine; I parked up at Abbey Park and found the canal (or one of its manifestations: the river and canal play hide and seek all the way from the Trent until south of Leicester when they finally part company, and when they part and come together again, making islands on which are parks and nature reserves.)  I was aiming for Aylestone Meadows but once I got there I just carried on walking, pointing myself at King’s Mill lock where there are some tea rooms. 

image removed on request

http://www.goleicestershire.com/thedms.aspx?dms=3&venue=2530957

Would they be open?  They were not; so back I went, finding a spot to use the shewee before having lunch.  I was starting to feel stiff and tired now, and the upper part of my right foot was complaining.  But there was…

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