I learned today that a very close friend's mother has died. The mother was a woman I knew very well. I've known her for at least twenty years. She was always incredibly supportive of me. She loved the wedding and came to see The Man In the Straw Hat. She had a long-term illness, but was a brilliant, resilient fighter and I always assumed she'd outlive us all. Nathan and I raised a toast to her tonight and if her daughter happens to be reading this blog: we are all here for you. Just say the word and we'll be there...
It's been a difficult day all round. The whether was appalling. Another storm is battering Britain. This one's called Frank, which strikes me as a fairly ludicrous name for a storm. There's no aggression and only comedy in the name Frank. I once dumped a bloke called Frank because I couldn't imagine telling people I was going out with someone with that name. I think it was when he told me to call him Frankie that I drew the line. "Frankie, do you remember me?" I reckon Felix would have been a better name for a storm. Or Fred...
We came to Julie's tonight to watch "The Lady In the Van", or "The Woman In the Car" as I called it by mistake. It's a lovely little film. It's a little bit too "meta" in places and it's catastrophically badly shot, but in amongst the hammy over-theatrical turns from the film's bit parts, Maggie Smith and Alex Jennings shine like the most glorious beacons. I suspect both will get BAFTA nominations and Smith will probably find herself up for an Oscar. I think Jennings is too nuanced and subtle to be liked by the Yanks, who will, of course, have no idea who Alan Bennett is, and therefore won't know what a superb impression Jennings is doing of the writer. You're not meant to say "impression" about the work of a proper actor, are you? What is the word? Interpretation? Variation?
We ate pizza and salad and talked about relationships and the concept of men shopping.
Perhaps I'm coming down with something. I've been a bit shivery all day, and yet again I didn't sleep last night, so I actually think I might be simply stressed out. Christmas has been a lot of fun, but all the traveling and wonderful socialising rather took it out of us.
I have just discovered that the word flak, as in "taking flak" is spelt without a c... In the past I would probably have spelt it "flack" (which isn't entirely wrong because that way has now become an accepted alternate spelling.) The word, perhaps unsurprisingly, comes from Germany during the Second World War and is an acronym for the "Fl(ieger)a(bwehr)k(anone)" anti-aircraft gun. You learn something new every day!
Thursday, 31 December 2015
Wednesday, 30 December 2015
Flood
We've been with Abbie all night tonight. It was her birthday yesterday and she booked a table in the old Colherne Pub, which was where Nathan, Philip and I had our joint 40th birthday party. The Colherne was a gay pub, back in the 70s, when Earls Court was a proper homo-hub. All that remains of that particular community these days is a lone Clone Zone, a sort of upmarket sex shop for men who like to go out for an evening without their wives!
It was a lovely evening. We played a few games and I had a nice cup of tea. One of the games caused a bit of a broiges, which flared up like a flash fire over a hat filled with innocent-looking pieces of paper. I think there are people in this world who passionately love to play games and people who hate them with as much alacrity. This evening witnessed a massive clash of these two types of people.
Abbie's Mum brought an enormous box of vintage sweeties; brilliant things like Parma Violets, Refreshers, Love Hearts and Drum Sticks which went down very well as the evening rolled on.
The evening ended with a cheeky haloumi kebab around the corner. Naughty but nice.
We talked about the flooding in York. Facebook informs me that at least one of my friends has been evacuated. I found a map online of the flood-damaged zones and it seems that both of the streets I lived in as a student have suffered extensive damage. It's so awful to watch the news and see sodden Christmas decorations and sofas being thrown into skips whilst shell-shocked families stand outside houses with tide marks reaching up to the first floor windows.
About ten years ago I made a film about flood victims in Sheffield. We were able to follow a woman as she went back into her house for the first time since she'd been rescued by a boat from her bedroom window. The place was an absolute wreck. A little soft toy was sitting on the front door step. The woman picked it up, went into the house and used it to wipe the mud away from several framed photographs which were lying smashed and water-logged on the floor.
She was apparently known in her family for her collection of porcelain and glass clowns which had once been displayed proudly on her side board. I watched as she discovered that every single one had smashed. She wept bitterly. It was devastating.
Perhaps even more devastating was taking the cameras into a refuge centre where local people who had been flooded out could have a free meal, get legal advice and find second-hand furniture and cleaning products. I helped to unload a patio furniture set and nasty chipboard single bed from a van which had been collecting donations from around the county. A fight broke out between two men who were desperate for some replacement furniture. It was extremely distressing to watch.
I remember a man coming into the centre with his family and sitting down to eat a free meal from flimsy paper plates. He looked so ashamed and when the cameras came out he tried to hide his face. A great deal gets written about the need for gender equality and how awful it is for women to be brought into a world where they're treated like second-class citizens. But ingrained gender perceptions go deep. Spare the odd thought for the working man who is taught from the moment he's born that his job - his duty - is to provide for and protect his loved ones at all costs. When he loses that ability, for whatever reasons, he loses the right to call himself a man, and that is one of the greatest tragedies a man can endure.
It was a lovely evening. We played a few games and I had a nice cup of tea. One of the games caused a bit of a broiges, which flared up like a flash fire over a hat filled with innocent-looking pieces of paper. I think there are people in this world who passionately love to play games and people who hate them with as much alacrity. This evening witnessed a massive clash of these two types of people.
Abbie's Mum brought an enormous box of vintage sweeties; brilliant things like Parma Violets, Refreshers, Love Hearts and Drum Sticks which went down very well as the evening rolled on.
The evening ended with a cheeky haloumi kebab around the corner. Naughty but nice.
We talked about the flooding in York. Facebook informs me that at least one of my friends has been evacuated. I found a map online of the flood-damaged zones and it seems that both of the streets I lived in as a student have suffered extensive damage. It's so awful to watch the news and see sodden Christmas decorations and sofas being thrown into skips whilst shell-shocked families stand outside houses with tide marks reaching up to the first floor windows.
About ten years ago I made a film about flood victims in Sheffield. We were able to follow a woman as she went back into her house for the first time since she'd been rescued by a boat from her bedroom window. The place was an absolute wreck. A little soft toy was sitting on the front door step. The woman picked it up, went into the house and used it to wipe the mud away from several framed photographs which were lying smashed and water-logged on the floor.
She was apparently known in her family for her collection of porcelain and glass clowns which had once been displayed proudly on her side board. I watched as she discovered that every single one had smashed. She wept bitterly. It was devastating.
Perhaps even more devastating was taking the cameras into a refuge centre where local people who had been flooded out could have a free meal, get legal advice and find second-hand furniture and cleaning products. I helped to unload a patio furniture set and nasty chipboard single bed from a van which had been collecting donations from around the county. A fight broke out between two men who were desperate for some replacement furniture. It was extremely distressing to watch.
I remember a man coming into the centre with his family and sitting down to eat a free meal from flimsy paper plates. He looked so ashamed and when the cameras came out he tried to hide his face. A great deal gets written about the need for gender equality and how awful it is for women to be brought into a world where they're treated like second-class citizens. But ingrained gender perceptions go deep. Spare the odd thought for the working man who is taught from the moment he's born that his job - his duty - is to provide for and protect his loved ones at all costs. When he loses that ability, for whatever reasons, he loses the right to call himself a man, and that is one of the greatest tragedies a man can endure.
Monday, 28 December 2015
Cross at Brent Cross
I "popped" to Brent Cross this afternoon to buy myself a photo album. I use the term "pop" rather lightly. I staggered there through ghastly traffic and had to enter the car park illegally because all of the other entrances had been coned off.
The shopping centre itself was like something from Dante's Inferno. People were rushing about trying to find bargains, dropping things all over the floor in their rush to leave no stone left unturned. Shops end up looking like fields attacked by locusts. I was elbowed in the side by a woman brandishing a fifty pound note which was actually turned down by the man behind the counter. I would have been horrified on her behalf had she not been an obvious psychopath. Also, she smelled of margarine.
I bought the last album in Paper Chase. I like the albums with big Ivory-coloured pages where you have to glue the pictures in yourself. It feels more respectful to the photographs, somehow. I have been religiously glueing pictures into Paper Chase albums, or their equivalent, since 1991. I have subsequently filled more than thirty and I'm very proud of the collection. One of my great joys in life is watching an old friend leafing through pages which tell the story of another lifetime. When I die, I hope someone will be interested enough to keep the albums together. I think they represent a colourful life in a colourful period of time... I hope that's the case, anyway.
It took forever to get out of Brent Cross. The North Circular was chockablock and there was a prannie on the A1 who nearly ran me off the road.
I've been cold all day. I hate it when it's damp and dank outside. Give me snow and ice any day, but this kind of murky weather is just depressing and makes me want to eat.
I wonder how many people were back at work today? The shocking traffic around London yesterday implied that everyone was heading back to the city for some reason, but in my industry, everything goes incredibly dark during the Chrimbo Limbo. When I worked in corporate films we were expected to take compulsory holiday in the week between Christmas and New Year. It counted as one of our three weeks, which I always thought was a bit dodgy!
I am horrified to see such apocalyptic scenes coming from my beloved York. The Yorkies tend to take flooding in their stride and certain areas of the city centre flood every year, but the arial photographs I looked yesterday imply something a great deal more cataclysmic is happening. I'm tying to work out if either of my student houses are presently under water, and imagined how helpless I'd have felt if I was at home for the Christmas holidays and found out my house was under water.
I'm horrified to learn that the government has cut the budget it intends to spend on flood defences by 8%, and that schemes in York and Leeds have been put on hold.
I don't know... We're happy to pointlessly drop incredibly expensive bombs on Syria, but we can't afford to protect ourselves from flooding. Boo!
The shopping centre itself was like something from Dante's Inferno. People were rushing about trying to find bargains, dropping things all over the floor in their rush to leave no stone left unturned. Shops end up looking like fields attacked by locusts. I was elbowed in the side by a woman brandishing a fifty pound note which was actually turned down by the man behind the counter. I would have been horrified on her behalf had she not been an obvious psychopath. Also, she smelled of margarine.
I bought the last album in Paper Chase. I like the albums with big Ivory-coloured pages where you have to glue the pictures in yourself. It feels more respectful to the photographs, somehow. I have been religiously glueing pictures into Paper Chase albums, or their equivalent, since 1991. I have subsequently filled more than thirty and I'm very proud of the collection. One of my great joys in life is watching an old friend leafing through pages which tell the story of another lifetime. When I die, I hope someone will be interested enough to keep the albums together. I think they represent a colourful life in a colourful period of time... I hope that's the case, anyway.
It took forever to get out of Brent Cross. The North Circular was chockablock and there was a prannie on the A1 who nearly ran me off the road.
I've been cold all day. I hate it when it's damp and dank outside. Give me snow and ice any day, but this kind of murky weather is just depressing and makes me want to eat.
I wonder how many people were back at work today? The shocking traffic around London yesterday implied that everyone was heading back to the city for some reason, but in my industry, everything goes incredibly dark during the Chrimbo Limbo. When I worked in corporate films we were expected to take compulsory holiday in the week between Christmas and New Year. It counted as one of our three weeks, which I always thought was a bit dodgy!
I am horrified to see such apocalyptic scenes coming from my beloved York. The Yorkies tend to take flooding in their stride and certain areas of the city centre flood every year, but the arial photographs I looked yesterday imply something a great deal more cataclysmic is happening. I'm tying to work out if either of my student houses are presently under water, and imagined how helpless I'd have felt if I was at home for the Christmas holidays and found out my house was under water.
I'm horrified to learn that the government has cut the budget it intends to spend on flood defences by 8%, and that schemes in York and Leeds have been put on hold.
I don't know... We're happy to pointlessly drop incredibly expensive bombs on Syria, but we can't afford to protect ourselves from flooding. Boo!
Sunday, 27 December 2015
Rodmell
We woke up in Crawley and had a very pleasant breakfast in the hotel. I love Premier Inn, and don't really know why anyone would need a hotel to be any fancier. We had a lovely bath tub, a big comfy bed, and the staff were all incredibly friendly.
We met the parents in the Tesco car park in Lewes. A classier rendezvous there never was! They'd arrived early and were reading newspapers. We had a quick tea and a hot chocolate in a Costa Coffee before heading off into the town itself to pick up Hilary and drive due south to the coast at Newhaven, where we met Meriel.
We spent the morning at Tide Mills, which is a darkly atmospheric spot by the sea which was once the site of a village, a water mill and TB hospital. I'm told that the village was condemned in the 1930s and that the last residents were forcefully removed in 1939, before much of the site was cleared when authorities started to worry it would create a useful hiding place for invading Germans!
These days, the entire area is nothing but a labyrinth of ruined outer walls melting into windswept fields of orange and burgundy sea grasses.
The sea front at Tide Mills is entirely unspoilt. It's a pebble beach where all sorts of flotsam and jetsam gets washed up by angry waves. We found beautiful shells, heart-shaped stones, cuttle fish, shoes and blocks of sanded down wood. There are no cafes or shops at Tide Mills, just an expanse of beach and tall, brooding sky which meet in an almost invisible smudge on the horizon.
The waves were huge today and bursting and crashing in the distance over the harbour wall at Newhaven. The air was thick with foamy spray and periodically a yellow wave would rush up the shingle and the heavy wind would smack droplets of water onto our faces.
After walking for about an hour, we jumped into a flotilla of cars and drove to a village called Rodmell, which those with knowledge of the Hogarth Press and the Bloomsbury group, will recognise as the final home of Virginia Wolf. My mother is probably the biggest fan of that particular novelist in the world, so Meriel's decision to have lunch in a pub in the village was utterly inspired.
Wolf's cremated remains are buried under an elm tree in Monk House, which is the house in the village where she lived. During summer months it's possible to have a look around the inside of the house, which is a National Trust property these days. It's a well known fact that Wolf committed suicide by filling her pockets with stones and walking into the Ouse, but I didn't realise that her body wasn't found for three weeks, which is a fairly grim thought. Her husband, Leonard, must have been out of his mind with worry.
Rodmell is a stunning village, which is almost entirely unspoiled to the extent that you could film a period drama there tomorrow. The food in the Abergavenny Pub was pretty good as well!
We drove home, using Google Maps to try and avoid ludicrous traffic jams on the M25 whilst listening to Radio 4, which seemed to be stuck in some sort of poetry hell. I flipping hate modern poetry, particularly when it's read out by the poets themselves, who, these days, insist on speaking in a boring monotone which makes the nonsense of what they're saying even less interesting. I entirely lost interest every time any of them started to read. The show was being presented by a pretentious-sounding man with a thick Liverpudlian accent who interviewed the poets in "cool" rather noisy locations like cafes. After one of the poems he simply said, "that poem gives me the willies." Nathan turned to me after listening to one particular poet and said "is she not embarrassed to read this out?" It really did sound like a piss take!
We met the parents in the Tesco car park in Lewes. A classier rendezvous there never was! They'd arrived early and were reading newspapers. We had a quick tea and a hot chocolate in a Costa Coffee before heading off into the town itself to pick up Hilary and drive due south to the coast at Newhaven, where we met Meriel.
We spent the morning at Tide Mills, which is a darkly atmospheric spot by the sea which was once the site of a village, a water mill and TB hospital. I'm told that the village was condemned in the 1930s and that the last residents were forcefully removed in 1939, before much of the site was cleared when authorities started to worry it would create a useful hiding place for invading Germans!
These days, the entire area is nothing but a labyrinth of ruined outer walls melting into windswept fields of orange and burgundy sea grasses.
The sea front at Tide Mills is entirely unspoilt. It's a pebble beach where all sorts of flotsam and jetsam gets washed up by angry waves. We found beautiful shells, heart-shaped stones, cuttle fish, shoes and blocks of sanded down wood. There are no cafes or shops at Tide Mills, just an expanse of beach and tall, brooding sky which meet in an almost invisible smudge on the horizon.
The waves were huge today and bursting and crashing in the distance over the harbour wall at Newhaven. The air was thick with foamy spray and periodically a yellow wave would rush up the shingle and the heavy wind would smack droplets of water onto our faces.
After walking for about an hour, we jumped into a flotilla of cars and drove to a village called Rodmell, which those with knowledge of the Hogarth Press and the Bloomsbury group, will recognise as the final home of Virginia Wolf. My mother is probably the biggest fan of that particular novelist in the world, so Meriel's decision to have lunch in a pub in the village was utterly inspired.
Wolf's cremated remains are buried under an elm tree in Monk House, which is the house in the village where she lived. During summer months it's possible to have a look around the inside of the house, which is a National Trust property these days. It's a well known fact that Wolf committed suicide by filling her pockets with stones and walking into the Ouse, but I didn't realise that her body wasn't found for three weeks, which is a fairly grim thought. Her husband, Leonard, must have been out of his mind with worry.
Rodmell is a stunning village, which is almost entirely unspoiled to the extent that you could film a period drama there tomorrow. The food in the Abergavenny Pub was pretty good as well!
We drove home, using Google Maps to try and avoid ludicrous traffic jams on the M25 whilst listening to Radio 4, which seemed to be stuck in some sort of poetry hell. I flipping hate modern poetry, particularly when it's read out by the poets themselves, who, these days, insist on speaking in a boring monotone which makes the nonsense of what they're saying even less interesting. I entirely lost interest every time any of them started to read. The show was being presented by a pretentious-sounding man with a thick Liverpudlian accent who interviewed the poets in "cool" rather noisy locations like cafes. After one of the poems he simply said, "that poem gives me the willies." Nathan turned to me after listening to one particular poet and said "is she not embarrassed to read this out?" It really did sound like a piss take!
Saturday, 26 December 2015
Ditchling
We've been in a village in East Sussex called Ditchling all day. We drove down from Thaxted first thing via London where we dropped Tina back home.
Ditchling is a charming little place in the Sussex Downs where there's still a troupe of mummers and scores of ancient pubs and chocolate-box-pretty buildings. It's where my cousin Matt lives, in a beautiful, Art Deco-style house on the edge of the village, surrounded by fields and orchards.
There were twenty seven of us there today and we all sat down to eat at two very long tables. I never think of myself as having a particularly large family, especially not by Nathan's standards (who has over forty first cousins), but I guess we're just small and contained enough for everyone to be able to get together on occasions like these.
As I get older, my family means more and more to me and seeing them regularly feels important. It's been a troublesome year for some of my cousins, so today felt like a genuine show of solidarity. As Matt said in an impromptu speech, "we'll get through this... We will..."
We had a big quiz. My team came last, largely on account of opting to answer almost impossible questions on the Borough of Islington and not knowing any of the answers! How many properties on the Monopoly Board, for example, are in the N1 postcode?
Answer, 2. The Angel and Pentonville Road.
How many train and tube stations are there in the Borough of Islington?
14, apparently...
Our next round was on International Rugby and the one after that was on Disney princesses, so we never stood a hope in hell!
We went for a little walk around a neighbouring field and met a horrible farmer who asked if we were lost. When we said we weren't, he said "so you're not lost? Even though you're not on the footpath, you're not lost? I shan't shoot you, though... It's a Saturday." Twat.
I was walking one of my cousin's dogs, who was the most wilful creatures I've ever met. She literally pulled me along with all her might until we got to a stile, where she froze rigid, and refused to move until I'd picked her up and carried her over.
It's my mother's birthday tomorrow, so we're staying in a Premier Inn in a place called Crawley so that we can take my Mum out in the area tomorrow morning for a birthday walk. It's only 10pm, and we're already in bed!
Ditchling is a charming little place in the Sussex Downs where there's still a troupe of mummers and scores of ancient pubs and chocolate-box-pretty buildings. It's where my cousin Matt lives, in a beautiful, Art Deco-style house on the edge of the village, surrounded by fields and orchards.
There were twenty seven of us there today and we all sat down to eat at two very long tables. I never think of myself as having a particularly large family, especially not by Nathan's standards (who has over forty first cousins), but I guess we're just small and contained enough for everyone to be able to get together on occasions like these.
As I get older, my family means more and more to me and seeing them regularly feels important. It's been a troublesome year for some of my cousins, so today felt like a genuine show of solidarity. As Matt said in an impromptu speech, "we'll get through this... We will..."
We had a big quiz. My team came last, largely on account of opting to answer almost impossible questions on the Borough of Islington and not knowing any of the answers! How many properties on the Monopoly Board, for example, are in the N1 postcode?
Answer, 2. The Angel and Pentonville Road.
How many train and tube stations are there in the Borough of Islington?
14, apparently...
Our next round was on International Rugby and the one after that was on Disney princesses, so we never stood a hope in hell!
We went for a little walk around a neighbouring field and met a horrible farmer who asked if we were lost. When we said we weren't, he said "so you're not lost? Even though you're not on the footpath, you're not lost? I shan't shoot you, though... It's a Saturday." Twat.
I was walking one of my cousin's dogs, who was the most wilful creatures I've ever met. She literally pulled me along with all her might until we got to a stile, where she froze rigid, and refused to move until I'd picked her up and carried her over.
It's my mother's birthday tomorrow, so we're staying in a Premier Inn in a place called Crawley so that we can take my Mum out in the area tomorrow morning for a birthday walk. It's only 10pm, and we're already in bed!
Merry Christmas everyone
We're watching Downton Abbey at the end of a rather charming Christmas Day. It seems really very weird to be watching the final episode of a show which has been in our lives for so long. It feels like the programme has been running for far more than six years and when a show goes out at the top of its game, it always feels a bit of a wrench to lose it. ITV must be desperate to find an alternative.
We've been in Thaxted all day, sitting by an open fire, eating copious quantities of grub and opening lots of presents.
I've done very well on the gift front. Fiona gave me a wooden piano stool in the shape of an elephant and (incredibly excitingly) Nathan bought tickets for us to see the Electric Light Orchestra at the O2! ELO was a childhood obsession which became almost fanatical as a teenager and has lived in my back pocket ever since. I am so profoundly excited.
Lunch was brilliant. I have no idea how my Mum managed to prepare and cook so much delicious food. I did the potatoes and the gravy. I did well, although Fiona posted a picture on Facebook of her cooking a Christmas dinner with a full 1950s chignon without a bead of sweat on her forehead, which made me feel somewhat inadequate in my brown smock!
I was also in charge of lighting the Christmas pudding and managed to create a flame which was four feet tall, and set fire to the table cloth! The near disaster was all captured in photographs. I think next time I might try a little less brandy!
It was such a treat to have Tina with us all day. She and Nathan have been knitting all day and she's been a lovely addition to the family particularly in a year when Brother Edward is absent. I think in my life I've only spent two, maybe three, Christmases without him and his presence was greatly missed.
After lunch I spent some time sticking photographs of this year into an album, starting with shots from last Christmas and working sequentially, only choosing my very favourite pictures. It's been a good year: a year, perhaps, of consolidation rather than charging forward, but we've been on some wonderful trips and won some prestigious awards. I wasn't a BAFTA-nominee this time last year, that's for certain! Looking through the pictures was a lot of fun, although I'm going to need another album because I've managed to fill an entire book without getting beyond September!
We went to see Stuart and Sally and their two kids in the evening. They're very close friends of my parents who have become good friends of ours as a result of being on various quiz teams together. They actually met whilst working at my Dad's school when he was a headmaster and I think their kids see my parents as unofficial grandparents and vice versa. It's a pleasure to see them all together. Life is about the creation of these unorthodox families.
They live in a very quirky, ancient house opposite the church in Thaxted, which is incredibly homely. We sat around the wood-burning stove playing parlour games and eating yet more food. Tina and Nathan continued to knit whilst Sally crocheted a blanket. At one point Nathan showed her how to "spit splice" yarn with a knot in it. It's like a curious form of alchemy which involves flobbing on two ends of a piece of wool and rubbing them manically on a thigh to join them together. I can't begin to imagine how it works!
We've been in Thaxted all day, sitting by an open fire, eating copious quantities of grub and opening lots of presents.
I've done very well on the gift front. Fiona gave me a wooden piano stool in the shape of an elephant and (incredibly excitingly) Nathan bought tickets for us to see the Electric Light Orchestra at the O2! ELO was a childhood obsession which became almost fanatical as a teenager and has lived in my back pocket ever since. I am so profoundly excited.
Lunch was brilliant. I have no idea how my Mum managed to prepare and cook so much delicious food. I did the potatoes and the gravy. I did well, although Fiona posted a picture on Facebook of her cooking a Christmas dinner with a full 1950s chignon without a bead of sweat on her forehead, which made me feel somewhat inadequate in my brown smock!
I was also in charge of lighting the Christmas pudding and managed to create a flame which was four feet tall, and set fire to the table cloth! The near disaster was all captured in photographs. I think next time I might try a little less brandy!
It was such a treat to have Tina with us all day. She and Nathan have been knitting all day and she's been a lovely addition to the family particularly in a year when Brother Edward is absent. I think in my life I've only spent two, maybe three, Christmases without him and his presence was greatly missed.
After lunch I spent some time sticking photographs of this year into an album, starting with shots from last Christmas and working sequentially, only choosing my very favourite pictures. It's been a good year: a year, perhaps, of consolidation rather than charging forward, but we've been on some wonderful trips and won some prestigious awards. I wasn't a BAFTA-nominee this time last year, that's for certain! Looking through the pictures was a lot of fun, although I'm going to need another album because I've managed to fill an entire book without getting beyond September!
We went to see Stuart and Sally and their two kids in the evening. They're very close friends of my parents who have become good friends of ours as a result of being on various quiz teams together. They actually met whilst working at my Dad's school when he was a headmaster and I think their kids see my parents as unofficial grandparents and vice versa. It's a pleasure to see them all together. Life is about the creation of these unorthodox families.
They live in a very quirky, ancient house opposite the church in Thaxted, which is incredibly homely. We sat around the wood-burning stove playing parlour games and eating yet more food. Tina and Nathan continued to knit whilst Sally crocheted a blanket. At one point Nathan showed her how to "spit splice" yarn with a knot in it. It's like a curious form of alchemy which involves flobbing on two ends of a piece of wool and rubbing them manically on a thigh to join them together. I can't begin to imagine how it works!
Friday, 25 December 2015
Pizzas, bells and smells
I couldn't sleep last night and spent a few hours in the wee smalls curled up in a corner of Sam's sitting room writing music. I tend to think there's no point in tossing and turning on these occasions... Knuckle down and get on with something worthwhile instead.
We drove in convoy to a Pizza Hut on the edge of Chester this morning. Because we celebrated Christmas yesterday, today has felt like Boxing Day, so when we arrived in the city to find everyone bustling about and all the shops open, we were briefly confused.
Eating in Pizza Hut on Christmas Eve is a Gaitch family tradition and today we all opted for the eat-all-you-can buffet. The vegetarian pizzas arrived rather sporadically on the buffet table, so we ended up eating copious bowls of salad whilst waiting for more to arrive. A very fat family seemed to move in like hippopotamuses in a swamp every time a new pizza arrived. You could see them piling their plates high with as many slices of pizza as their huge gobs could chow down on.
I can't talk. I've systematically over-eaten every day for the past week and today was no exception. As Nathan's niece Jenny succinctly put it "every day is so yummy..."
We entertained other diners at the cafe with carols and Christmas songs sung in multi-part harmony. I guess there are few families baring the Von Trapps who could claim to be so vocally adept!
We drove the 212 miles from Chester to Thaxted through remarkably beautiful skies which brought us both rain showers and bright sunlight.
We picked Tina up from Bishop's Stortford and drove her back to Thaxted through the dark country lanes behind Stansted Airport. There's a little house in those parts which gets very big at this time of year. We call it the Christmas House and its increasingly gaudy, somewhat ludicrous Christmas lights have been part of my Yuletime experience for the past twenty years.
We stopped the car outside this evening and got out to have a look around. The proud owner of the house opens the front driveway for visitors and collects money for animal charities.
It may be tacky, somewhat over the top and a bit naff but it made the three of us feel proper Christmassy! There were lots of children milling about who were loving the experience. There are scores of singing Santas, dancing dogs and flashing reindeer. If it's garish, shiny, luminous or multi-coloured it's in. Several times! I think my favourite ornament was a nativity scene with fibrotic pulsing straw in the manger!
I accompanied Tina and my Mum to midnight mass tonight, which proved, if ever proof were necessary, exactly why it is that traditional religion in this country is dying. We sat through litany and liturgy, lengthy prayers delivered by a flat-voiced vicar. There was a raggedy "choir" who insisted on singing the most dirge-like, endless, tuneless chants incredibly badly. It was ghastly and boring. The only time the congregation perked up was when they got to light candles and walk around the beautiful church in a procession behind some kind of 19th century smoke machine. That sort of religion should be about mysticism and theatrics, not boring people half to death. I would be ashamed to be a vicar of a church whose congregation looked quite so passive and uninspired as I spoke. Frankly I'd start by sacking the choir master and increasing ten-fold the number of congregational hymns, telling the flock that if they didn't sing louder and with more joy Jesus wouldn't want them for a sunbeam!
Still, walking through the silent streets of Thaxted as the bells drew us to the church was rather magical, as was the almost full moon, surrounded by a corona, which glowed like a spotlight in the sky.
The vicar, in his dull sermon, told us not to use the word magical. "Magic means trickery and fakery..." We're apparently to use the word mystical instead. What a load of baloney!
We came home and watched News 24, pulling apart a newsreader who appeared to be acting the news, which was odd. She had a funny mouth, a speech impediment and you could see her nipples through her top. Not sure the person who hired her could see much beyond her blonde hair.
We drove in convoy to a Pizza Hut on the edge of Chester this morning. Because we celebrated Christmas yesterday, today has felt like Boxing Day, so when we arrived in the city to find everyone bustling about and all the shops open, we were briefly confused.
Eating in Pizza Hut on Christmas Eve is a Gaitch family tradition and today we all opted for the eat-all-you-can buffet. The vegetarian pizzas arrived rather sporadically on the buffet table, so we ended up eating copious bowls of salad whilst waiting for more to arrive. A very fat family seemed to move in like hippopotamuses in a swamp every time a new pizza arrived. You could see them piling their plates high with as many slices of pizza as their huge gobs could chow down on.
I can't talk. I've systematically over-eaten every day for the past week and today was no exception. As Nathan's niece Jenny succinctly put it "every day is so yummy..."
We entertained other diners at the cafe with carols and Christmas songs sung in multi-part harmony. I guess there are few families baring the Von Trapps who could claim to be so vocally adept!
We drove the 212 miles from Chester to Thaxted through remarkably beautiful skies which brought us both rain showers and bright sunlight.
We picked Tina up from Bishop's Stortford and drove her back to Thaxted through the dark country lanes behind Stansted Airport. There's a little house in those parts which gets very big at this time of year. We call it the Christmas House and its increasingly gaudy, somewhat ludicrous Christmas lights have been part of my Yuletime experience for the past twenty years.
We stopped the car outside this evening and got out to have a look around. The proud owner of the house opens the front driveway for visitors and collects money for animal charities.
It may be tacky, somewhat over the top and a bit naff but it made the three of us feel proper Christmassy! There were lots of children milling about who were loving the experience. There are scores of singing Santas, dancing dogs and flashing reindeer. If it's garish, shiny, luminous or multi-coloured it's in. Several times! I think my favourite ornament was a nativity scene with fibrotic pulsing straw in the manger!
I accompanied Tina and my Mum to midnight mass tonight, which proved, if ever proof were necessary, exactly why it is that traditional religion in this country is dying. We sat through litany and liturgy, lengthy prayers delivered by a flat-voiced vicar. There was a raggedy "choir" who insisted on singing the most dirge-like, endless, tuneless chants incredibly badly. It was ghastly and boring. The only time the congregation perked up was when they got to light candles and walk around the beautiful church in a procession behind some kind of 19th century smoke machine. That sort of religion should be about mysticism and theatrics, not boring people half to death. I would be ashamed to be a vicar of a church whose congregation looked quite so passive and uninspired as I spoke. Frankly I'd start by sacking the choir master and increasing ten-fold the number of congregational hymns, telling the flock that if they didn't sing louder and with more joy Jesus wouldn't want them for a sunbeam!
Still, walking through the silent streets of Thaxted as the bells drew us to the church was rather magical, as was the almost full moon, surrounded by a corona, which glowed like a spotlight in the sky.
The vicar, in his dull sermon, told us not to use the word magical. "Magic means trickery and fakery..." We're apparently to use the word mystical instead. What a load of baloney!
We came home and watched News 24, pulling apart a newsreader who appeared to be acting the news, which was odd. She had a funny mouth, a speech impediment and you could see her nipples through her top. Not sure the person who hired her could see much beyond her blonde hair.
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