Alas, a bereavement...

Quietly at home... I want to announce the apple has bitten the dust. Actually it bit, almost literally, into the side of the breadboard. I'd photographed it earlier this morning, and found that it was leaking some kind of rather nasty sticky liquid, and was more or less mush underneath the skin. It was clearly on it's last legs (ok, maybe that's not necessarily an appropriate description!) and as such I posted it onto Flickr, saying such. Then later this afternoon, I came to make some tea, and went to move it, and it just went flying off the plate splat! onto the side of the breadboard.

As you can see. So I rushed and got the camera, took it's last photo's - and chucked it into the bin.

And here it is, nestling away in the corner. Bin men come tomorrow,
so I expect it's going to be a short interment. I shall really miss this,
taking it's photo, watching it change. It's been an experience, that's for sure. What next I wonder? A plum? I was thinking maybe grapes...

A really great weekend!!!

I've had a really good weekend this week. Met up with Abs for coffee and a natter on Saturday - that was brill, popped to do a bit of food shopping afterwards, and spend a fair bit of the evening uploading more stuff on to Ebay. I live in hope that some of it will sell!!
Then Sunday I met up with old friends that I was at university at, we went to the Primrose Cafe in Clifton. They do stunning breakfasts there, and we had a really good meal, followed by a wander that ended up in the Oxfam second hand bookstore - what more could you ask for?!
I'm sure to a casual reader this probably sounds dead boring - but it was just so nice to see old friends, keep in touch. Made a few sales on Sunday evening - always a good thing! More than that, I even bought a few things for Xmas, so you could say I'm started at least. When you think of the amounts that have to be bought, it leaves you - well, feeling slightly stunned to say the least. I caught myself thinking well if I buy crackers this week, I'm that much ahead of the game. Presents & table wear this month, food next. It's a wonder the women of Britain don't collapse en masse under the strain of it all!!!

Food...!!!!! Again!!!

I seem to be doing a lot of blogging this week - I'm clearly filled with the urge to blog. I wanted to add something to my thoughts on food.

Christmas is coming. You can tell this because not just the goose is getting fat, so are the magazine shelves, bulging with what can only be described as near pornographic food magazines. I was in ye old Sadsbury's yesterday, and they bulged with a near conscious desire to leap from their shelves and into my trolley. I was resisting. And I actually managed to get out of there without buying a single one, although I will probably pay for this later in the week by buying three. However I noticed one or two things.
Firstly they are all coming with attached recipe calendar for the new year. Ha Ha! I've already bought mine, and food is the last thing on it's pages.
Secondly, I've got a family to cook for this Xmas. And I am planning already. We'll be a bit smaller this year than on others - Jo and her husband are planning on being away, so there will just be mother, the brothers and myself, which makes a bit of a change. Being fewer, we will need less, which means I can spend a bit more time and effort on what I actually do - fun eh? I expect this will be a running theme over the next few months - what, when how etc. Just to say now, for all the complaining that I expect I will be doing, because I do the same year in year out, I do love it. I love the planning, the cooking etc - just not quite so keen on the actual buying. Shops are hell at this time of year. Absolute hell.

A for....

Oh I've had a bit of fun tonight. No, not what you think, I've been watching these silly programmes on BBC Four, some sort of series on British Science Fiction. There was a trailer for the website, so when I was next at the computer I checked it out, and they've got this thing called a Timeline. It's got a load of names and stuff set up on a sort of date index, all names of science fiction books, tv series, all that kind of thing. So before I knew where I was I was filling stuff out, and commenting on these things - I will admit to being a sci fi freak these days. Twenty years ago, I wouldn't have been so forthcoming.

But exactly why was that? Well back in the sixties, girls didn't read sci fi. At the most they might have watched Thunderbirds, which had it's girls character - Lady Penelope, pretty much specifically put there for the girls. I enjoyed Thunderbirds, but I preferred Captain Scarlet. But having got in to this stuff, and we were a family that watched Dr Who, (oh yes, behind the sofa and all that, boring..) I liked sci fi. And when I found a book with a spacecraft on the cover in my brother's bookshelf, I 'borrowed' it. I still have it. Oh yes. It was an Isaac Asimov, Foundation and Empire, I think, and I devoured it. Moved on to Second Foundation, - he didn't seem to have a copy of Foundation, it was a good ten years after this that I found a copy of Foundation, and got to read it. But from the Foundation books, I think I went to the Stars Like Dust. Now I have my own personal theory that the Stars Like Dust is Star Wars with a few added extras. But that's an argument for another day. I really enjoyed the short stories - and then one day I found a science fiction section in our local WHSmiths - it was so so tiny. Perhaps half a dozen books crammed in next to the Religious and Poetry sections. But I bought A E Van Vogts' War Against the Rull. I can remember ever so clearly my sense of shock that I could actually go out and buy these books. It was kind of maybe the first adult purchase I'd ever made, perhaps even before I'd bought my first single. And actually thinking about it, the first single I ever bought was Sugar Sugar by the Archies, so we're talking what, 68, 69? I would have been 9, 10 years old. I'm not exactly sure where the War Against the Rull is right now, or I'd dig it out and see how much it cost, but I'm prepared to bet it was about 25p. It's never been my favourite sci fi, but I must have enjoyed it enough to go and buy the next - Open Planet by James White, I think his name was. I did enjoy that. Then I found more Asimovs, more Arthur C Clarke, more Van Vogt. I think the Worlds of Null A came pretty quickly, and I liked that because I liked the Aristotelian twist to it. I knew nothing about Aristotelianism at the time, but I seemed to pick up enough of it to make a bit more sense of Aristotle when the time came to learn that titch of philosophy you need to learn to make sense of history.

Asimov's three laws of robotics made sense to me. Clarke's pathos inside things like Childhood's End. I'm not entirely sure if Clarke intended it to be there, but it hit the same nerve that the Borrower's had when I was a kid - I used to worry about what would happen to Arrietty when Pod and Homily died. Who would she be with? How could one be alone in life? Ok so this may sound a bit advanced for a five year old or so, but we didn't get the books where she met Spiller till I can't remember when, so for me Arrietty was alone, for ever and ever. I can even remember having nightmares about it. Arthur C Clarke's aging humanity, abandoned by their children, with no future ahead of them had the same sting in the tail (should that be tale?)

Andromeda was listed on this site, which was interesting, 'cos my first experience of Andromeda was through the book. It was one of my favourites, and the follow up, Andromeda Breakthrough. The books are way better than the tv series. I can't tell you how much better - somehow A for Andromeda should never be in colour, it should be filmed in grainy black and white, on a moor somewhere, in barracks. I dug out my copy to find the date of it, 1975 can you believe it.

I was late to fantasy. I had this idea that the only type of SF that I'd like was golden age pulp, the sort of stories that had been in Amazing Stories. The type that show up in the afternoons on Channel 4 occasionally, or if you're lucky a late night showing on an unsuitable day of the week. Then somehow I ended up reading an Anne McCaffrey. Dragons. But at least not girly dragons, and somehow setting it on another planet made it somehow acceptable. So I read Anne McCaffrey's, all of them for quite a long while. If I find an author I like, then I read everything by that author that I can get my hands on, and move on from there. And at some point I got my hands on Dune. Oh god it was like falling in love. Those long long books, the first time of reading - the demanding adab of the story!!! I've even read Brian Herberts follow ups. I wouldn't say they reach say the first rung of Dad's calibre of story writing, but it's Dune so what can you do? There's no more real Dune, ever, sniff sniff, so I'll make do with what I can get. Like most other Dune addicts I guess.

At the moment, I'm hunting out the Darkover books. There's always another writer to discover, and a back catalogue to read through. Can't say I'm reading much new SF though. Alas I find very few new authors that grip. I do keep trying, and who knows, in ten years I might be working my way through Pratchet. I have to say I think that's unlikely. I read way more than SF, both fiction and non-fiction, so I'll never be short of something to read. Right now I'm re-reading Juliet Barker's biography of the Brontes, which is a great read. I was looking for my copy of Wuthering Heights which has unaccountably gone missing - I loose and find books all the time. Don't we all?

Food II !

Well, following that last bit, I really felt quite down. This weekend has improved things though, been really most pleasant. Jo and I did a craft fair on Sunday, and not only did I get some very nice comments on the Keycharms etc, I sold quite a few, which is really firm evidence people like them! And what's more, had a good end day on Ebay, firmer evidence indeed! It's quite thrilling when people buy something you've made, a real affirmation that you have - I don't know what to call it, I don't want to label it somehow. I find it hard to explain.

So, given that I've called this food 2, why am I going on about selling stuff? Maybe because I don't want to talk about food, and that in and of itself is interesting. I mean add that into what I put on my profile - do I avoid thinking/considering food because it's too hard/painful? And at my age, could how I look be really that important? Is there any point in life when how one looks ceases to be of importance? My mother, even my mother, frets about her hair before she goes out. She seems to have ceased worrying about her lipstick, which in a sense is alarming, because as a younger more vigorous woman she wouldn't have been caught dead without her lipstick on. But she wants to know her hair is alright. Perhaps 'vanity' (for lack of a more accurate word) is two-fold, there's a vanity that covers attractiveness, and a sense of image that pertains to presentability. That seems to make a lot of sense to me. I have a healthy sense of this - I want to know I haven't got egg on my face, that I'm not leaving the house with odd socks on, or a stain on my clothes. But I have no sense of self image in the sense that I know I'm a middle aged woman, I'm not looking for a partner, and I want to go about my business with little or no interference. I don't need lipstick and curled eyelashes for this. However, I'm shortly going on a night out, to meet up with old friends for a meal. And for this, I'm already thinking now what am I going to wear? How am I going to do my hair?
Hair is one of my bigger bugbears - I recently read a most sensible passage in a book, where the narrator said she kept her hair long because she didn't have to fuss with it. Short hair actually does require more looking after, more primping etc. My hair is really quite long now, and I can put it up with a few easy strokes of a brush and a few clips. It's fuss free.
But on a night out, you don't need fuss free hair, you need something that looks good. And given that I have this plethora of the stuff, it sort of expands the range of things that I can do with it - up or down?! Backcombed or sleek? Do I have enough hair spray to cope??? And dear God, do I have a skirt that I'm going to feel comfortable in? I have this great new top I bought a while back, and I reckon I'll wear that, but skirt, or jeans?
It's all decisions in the end. I'll let you know...!!!!

Food..

Today I wanted to write about food. Not for any particular reason - well that's not quite true. I was getting out of a car the other day, one of those big 4x4 type things, which people buy and think are convenient for moving people and things about town, but totally forget that what they're doing is getting a vehicle that's a good further 6 inches higher than an ordinary car, and that if you have legs that are a bit shorter than the average, involve a leap into the dark when you get out of them. Actually getting in to them is difficult enough. But that's neither here nor there.

Anyhow getting out of this thing I twisted my knee, and it's been so painful over the past few days in particular. Clearly I've twisted the tendon or something. I thought - and loads of people said - go and see the doctor, but what could a doctor actually do? It's not like I need painkillers, I have my regular prescription in case my back goes (now that's a really long story!) so if it gets really bad I take one of those. It's just that I know if I go and see the doc, well the likelihood is I'd end up with a long wait to get an x-ray which would show nothing as x-rays don't show muscular damage, and an appointment for a bit of physio. My surgery is lucky enough to have it's own physiotherapist, so that wouldn't be too long a wait. And if it keeps on going, I've not doubt that that's exactly what I will do, go to see the doctor.

But the reality is I know the reaction I'll get. Anyone in their right mind would say the same thing, which of course everyone I know is too polite to actually say, well, if you weigh as much as you do, you must expect to get problems with your joints! And I want to say this, they would be absolutely right to say this. So here I am, back at the old conundrum. The old bugbear in my life - food, weight, size.. etc.

The first time I really became aware of bodysize was when I was quite a small girl - there was an incident at some kind of Christmas party my parents had, when this woman - I do know who she was, but she's dead now, and I wouldn't want to upset her family, (not that they're likely to read this) so I'm not going to name her. She was a tall thin woman, with one of those extraordinary bone structures. And I have a memory of her wearing a suede suit that my mother envied deeply, but I doubt that she was wearing this on this particular occasion. She was talking to my mother, and my sister was within hearing - I can't remember if I was or not, but I know that Jo was incredibly upset by it. She said to my mother "Honestly Joyce, isn't there anything you can do about those two?"
Of course what she meant was we were fat little tunks. I would have been perhaps 8 or 9, and Jo a couple of years younger. I think that was perhaps the first thing that hit me, body wise. Then there was a dreadful, personal incident that happened at my ballet class, when we were all in the locker room changing to go in, and I overheard one mother say to another mother "Who is that little elephant in the pink tights?"

Well it's easy enough to laugh about these things now, but they set in tow a whole range of feelings and behaviours that I'm still battling with now. I can remember a very distinct feeling of isolation, of arming myself against this sort of comment. I don't think I was too successful! But what it did kick off, of course, was years and years of yo-yo dieting. I go through long periods of What-the-hell-ness, it's my affair what I weigh and that's that, then 6 months of bizarre eating. Yeah I've done the cabbage diet - gross. Absolutely gross. I've joined clubs. Which is a real ordeal for me, as on a psychological level, I think being weighed in public is a form of torture. Of strange women, screeching "Oh well done, you've lost a quarter of an ounce!" Some return on seven days of starvation that is. The fact the room is packed with total strangers when they do this. Ghastly.

I've even been successful at times. I lost huge amounts of weight when I lived in Brum as a teenager, desperate to get in to a pair of black cords. I made it, wore them perhaps three or four times before some kind of disaster came along and I started to eat again.

So at the end of all this, I have to start to loose weight again. And I am doing, I know, I've been cutting down on the fats and sugars, increasing the fibre - nothing dramatic, just slow and steady. No groups, no strangers. Lord it's a pain. But I'm thinking my knees will thank me in a few months!

Behold the gas man cometh....

Yeah well, I spoke to Lisa from work this morning when I was waiting for the first gas man, and when she phoned back at some point this afternoon to say that tomorrows training wasn't happening and I was still waiting for gas man number 2 she said you should blog this, and frankly after what I've been through today, yeah, someone deserves a really good blogging.

Ok, so where to start with this - the saga of the gas main. Actually, in its entirety it's really the council's fault, 'cos they've started with this mass fly breeding programme - yes, otherwise known as recycling, but frankly if you ask me, it is one of the biggest mass fly breeding programmes known to man. So, in order to comply with this, we needed space to store the various numbers of bins, boxes and what have yous that the refuse recycling needs. So our landlord volunteered to build us a bin cubby, which - well, I was thrilled. Seriously. I was really thrilled. Particularly as the house down the road, which is being converted to flats, had just had this really flash bin cubby built - and ours frankly is a hot second. Imagine my delight as it took shape - it's no mean task excavating part of the front garden. We're on a mini hill you see, and there's an awful lot of muck and stuff to shift - and yes, there was.. duh duh duhhhh.. ( I feel I need either the Philharmonic or at the least a crazed organist to accompany this) the Cable cable, the Electric Cable and... more of the duh duh duhhh maestro please, the Gas main. And whilst the cables could be moved, the gas main couldn't, and as a consequence was left in solitary yellow majesty stretched across the lonesome might of Stalag Bin Cubby. (I'm telling you, not a tin could get out of there alive.)

Frankly, to start with all was well. Yes it was a gas main, but I knew it was in hand, I knew the gas board would arrive to shift it soon. A man had told me. A man in a suit, with a clipboard. I knew because I'd been there on that bright sunny day, full of optimism and 80 degrees in the shade, looking at it straight in the bright yellow poly propa whatever it is, a long yellow tube gleaming in the sunshine, uncovered in all it's majesty. Oh yes, he said, reasonably straight forward, he said, we'll be here soon, he said. Soon as the landlord OK's it, we'll be there, we'll take it from down there, dig a trench diagonally across the garden, connect it up to the street main, and it'll take a day or so but we'll get it done in no time. (Now's the time to start humming that wonderful tune they used to play at Russian Politburo funerals - you know the one, dumm dumm da dumm, dumm da dumm dumm dah da..)
Cut to September, nope, November - we're what, two and a half months later? In the interim, we've had new tenants move in, and they've spotted the gap in the fence. Oh yes. Our lovely new little bin cubby, it's been filled with rubbish - it looks frankly as if a group of travellers have moved in. There's even a toaster with it's cord wrapped lovingly around the neck of the gas mains rather alarming bulge - no earth to support it you see, it needs a toaster to lean on. Consultations abound, landlord arranges for van, van won't arrive to weekend, can you get them to move the stuff - I ask, but frankly the new tenants are Portuguese, and my Spanish is weak at the best. Weak my foot, it's non-existent. Time goes by..
Landlords gas and safety check, happens every year, I follow him round as he checks everything in the place. Nice little man turns up, for some reason doesn't seem to be much interested in the appliances, which was odd, even at the time. I asked, he said no that doesn't need to be done. Incidentally, I'd already waiting in for him all afternoon - I book these things weeks in advance, I say yeah, 12 to 4, that'll be fine and everytime I live in hope the bell will ring at 12, or 1, or even 2. No this one lives around the corner, and he comes just before he signs off for the afternoon. You just know he arranges it that way. You can't quite look him in the eye and accuse him of lying when you say how fed up of it constantly being so late in the day, but you know that the truth lies beneath that innocent gaze.

So to get back on track here, he arrives and starts checking stuff out. He's switched the gas off, and he's poking this, turning off that boiler, and at some point, he says, you know I can't quite pin it down, but I think there's a leak. Oh yeah I say, well have you checked out that thing in the garden. Oh what thing he asks, innocence personified - well ok, maybe he didn't glance to the left into Colditz's bin store as he raced up the steps, brightly imagining I'm going to just check these things out and I'll be home, in time to watch.. well, whatever this guy watches when he gets home of an evening. Well after he's tested everything, I persuade him to take a look outside. OH he says. Hmm he says. I'll never know how we managed to get away with not having it cut off then and there. Pipes like that, he says, aren't meant to be uncovered, he says, not meant to be exposed to sunlight he says. Right I say. When can you people come and fix it? I should mention by this time I've had several rather frantic chats on the phone with the landlord, who's told me the job was paid for ages ago and he has no idea why they haven't come to do it. Well says the little gas man, I wouldn't know. I'm only doing landlord check's you see. He's writing stuff on forms, and then he's on the phone to someone else, and before I know where I am he's telling me he's certified it - Certified it! Well I guess someone with a nice little set of white jackets to wrap around it and tie it up might help at this point, but having told us we have to watch it like hawks - after all, we're approaching Guy Fawkes.. he doesn't have to say anymore. I have visions of a mere sparkler landing in there - we'd be a large hole in the ground with unpleasant red stains. And an awful lot of rubble.
So.. well he didn't cut us off. I did my best to explain to Valeri downstairs (Estonian, I think, and no I don't speak the language, but thank God, he's picked up English amazingly well.)

So where was I? Yes, we waited. No emergency over the weekend, even thought the local pests set fire to the kids playground (check it out below.) Phonecall on Friday, they'll be here 8 am, Monday. 8 am arrives, and I'm up bright and early, and yes, man arrives at 8.30. They enter the house to cut the gas off at the meter. (That bit's important for later) (and why is this turning in to War and Peace?) They dig. They erect traffic guidance fencing. It's happening, old yella is disappearing, it's like dawn of the zombie dead down there, there's pipe everywhere. Actually, I have to say they did a remarkably tidy bit of work.

But. And this is where this moves from the casual observance into the realm of the farcical - he cannot re-enter the house to light the pilot lights on the boilers and re connect the gas. I have to wait for a chap to turn up to do that, he's booked him, he'll be there lunchtime.
Lunchtime! I spit on lunchtime, I kick dust on lunchtime! I spit on Murder She Wrote, I kick dust on Star Trek Voyager! Well what else are you to watch whilst you wait for the gas man. If the Iceman had been on the box I would have watched it. I could have watched Hamlet whilst I waited for the gas man, I could have watched what the hell is that thing, The Longest Day.

I phoned at 2. No not them, they'd never heard of me. (Had the gasman of the morning left me a contact number to call if there were any problems? No he had not. To be fair, he probably expected no problems.) I called the gas leak people. Ah you want.. rattle off a sequence of numbers. Ring them. Strangely absent woman answers phone, oh yes, she says, then sniffs. We have you down for a call before 4.30, sniff. It's only 20 past 2. Sniff.
Ok I say, and settle in for whatever Jessica Fletcher was competently sorting out - ha! competent! - well whatever it was. By the time Tuvok is writhing on the floor, I'm glancing at the clock and thinking, well, I won't repeat what I thought. Called them back. Hung on forever. At least five whole minutes. Finally phone clicks and I anticipate a real person on the line.. brr it goes, the other party has disconnected goes the machine. At that point I'm looking for the button of death that will reduce the other party to a charred cinder on the floor. I re-dial. I wait a further five to seven minutes whilst they play Vivaldi at me, by the time I'm finished I could bloody play Vivaldi.
The call is answered by a man I can only assume is a very sick Scots Liverpudlian. Very sick. Very very sick because I can barely understand a word he is saying, and he's calling me Love, for which he'd better be glad I don't have a button of death. Frankly, I could have flailed him alive from my living room, by mere sweep of my eyes. Sulu has been promoted and appears to be dying in front of my eyes, by some kind of virus that appears to invent memories in the brains it infects. At least I think that was what was going on. And I'm going to throttle whoever invented those Zargon adverts.

Deeply sick Liverpudlian man returns from where he has placed me on hold, and is deeply sympathetic. What is it about the sick that makes them that bit more understanding? He drip feeds me the dispatch office telephone number, empathy and apologies. It's just what I need. I give them the 45 minutes I promised and phoned again, ah another sympathetic man, full of apologies, oh but there have been so many emergencies today he explains. Bristol has so clearly been full of exploding gas cylinders, and leaking this that and the other - and I understand, I'm nice, I'm sweet, I'm lying through my teeth, but I want these people here, now, and the only way to achieve that is to fake understanding and tolerance for their position - in the hope that they will fakely understand and tolerate mine, and we might actually achieve something.

Gas man does arrive, at some point near to sixish I think. He's not come to turn things on, he's come to change the Governor! Then he will switch things on. Fine I say, there it is, get on with it and I'm upstairs if you need me. He does. I hear him flailing around in the loft twenty minutes later and go to see what's happening. Well, he says, I think you've got a gas leak.

He's got a box with a long bendy tube on it. He's poking it near anything that might remotely be a gas powered appliance. At some point (having excavated my tin and flour cupboard) he's looking at me seriously and saying I'll just check this and then I'll need to speak to the Landlord, and I'm phoning Phil to say there's a mad gas man here.. I tell him the story of the day. We agree I'll call him back if the worst comes to the worst. I'm wondering exactly what that implies.

Then the gas man comes back. Oh it's alright, he says. I pressed a button on the boiler, and it must have got stuck. I'm standing there in my kitchen thinking he's pressed a button? Is this right, he was marching around threatening the four horsemen of the apocalypse, and now he's telling me he pressed a button that got stuck and it's ok?? Well he is saying we need to get the boiler serviced, and I'm thinking to myself, exactly was nice little gas man doing last week that this is happening now?
Second gas man beats a swiftish retreat. I'm preparing to phone Phil and tell him what's gone down, part two. At least I did get to phone the council and order the new wheeliebins. Stalag Bin Cubby will get it's new occupants in approx two to three weeks - and I'll be there to paint their i.d.'s on with my pot of green paint. I've had my instructions from the Refuse Department. All the fault of the Council you see...

Sunday

Don't know if I shouldn't be calling this Guy Fawkes night. As I type this, there are bangs and whizzes going off all over the place, and the kid's playground in the park over the road has been set on fire once already. There was a fire engine come along to put it out, but the only thing that you can say about it is whoever did it should be ashamed of themselves. On a night like tonight, God knows they're going to be busy enough without having to come along and put out a kids slide.

Well today I've been sleeping late, then got up about midday. I've spent most of the afternoon loading stuff onto Ebay - xmas shopping seems to have started, and I want to get my stuff out there. I also put my First Edition on there - I've had it for a good couple of years, and frankly, I bought it thinking I'd stick it on Ebay and see what happened with it. But what with one thing and another I haven't put it on, so did a bit of research and took a few photo's and bang it's on. Thing is, it's got a dust jacket. It's a bit battered - you'd expect that after, well it's 52 years old. But given that it is that, frankly, it's in bloody good condition. It's sitting here in front of me now. And the book itself is in really good condition, not a pencil mark to be seen. So fingers crossed - it'd make a collector a very nice Xmas present.

So what else have I put on there? Mobile Charms, Key Charms, a necklace and a few bracelets.. the end result of a lot of hard work. Let's hope it makes me some money, cos I have to say I put a lot of these things on there, and don't seem to see any profit for it! I keep saying the thing to get into of course is beads themselves - and come the new year, I really must start doing that!

Wednesday 1st November!

Day off today! And I had made my mind up to go do something nice, something just soul-pleasing. So I went for a walk to the Arno's Vale Cemetary - it normally doesn't have an apostrophe, but since historically speaking it was a vale that belonged to a Norman called Arnaud (or at least so I suppose, can't say I've actually done any research on it.)

This old place was on the Beeb's Restoration programme, but it didn't win. Still they got some money from somewhere 'cos they've been doing a fair bit of work over the past couple of years. Mind you they have to 'cos otherwise people would a) have been falling into people's graves, and b) odds are, the wall would have come down and the Bath Road would have been blocked. Still, so far they've managed to preserve a wee bit of the deserted graveyard bit, which frankly is so extreme that I got spooked when I wandered off the main drag, and along one of the paths. Check this out!

I took this just after I got spooked - and it is meant to be in black and white. It was a lovely clear day, but nevertheless it is a bit on the dark side. Have a look at these.

This one is a bit clearer. And this is right along the path I got spooked on - in the middle of the afternoon! Still it's the time of year for it I guess.. actually town seemed to be reasonably quiet when I was coming home last night.

Still for all this talk of getting spooked, it is a lovely place to go for a walk -

full of beautiful trees and leaves to crunch underfoot. And the air is amazingly clear for a place in the middle of a city, and bang smack next to a busy road.

And as well as this I've made two keycharms. So I'm feeling quite chuffed - all this and home made chicken soup as well! It's been a nice day, I feel as if I've had quite a special day!